


Muscle tragedy

by Sorrowwolf



Category: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Boxman is Neurodivergent because I said so, Broken Bones, Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Panic, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I will break this stupid record even if it's the last thing I do, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Like really slow, M/M, Multi, Not Beta Read, Original Character(s), PV has some form of severe anxiety because I said so, Panic Attacks, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Swearing, Venomous is a cute father figure, Voxman, headcanons, how did I not already have these tagged?, like way too many original characters, no we do not ship the rat with her dad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 78,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25286911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrowwolf/pseuds/Sorrowwolf
Summary: Once upon a time, a dumb college student decided she wanted to break the world record for longest fanfiction; this stupid story is the result.Summary Per Part:1-24, Opening Act: PV does some things and things happen.25-47?, Don't Deal With the Devil: PV's in too deep, and his past is quickly catching up to him. What will happen once the generosity of a certain imp starts wearing thin?48-70?, Smells of Lemon Zest: I keep writing more than I expected, so now part one has been cut in three.I can't believe it's not Professor Venomous!: TBARoommates: TBAVoxmore: No joke this is seriously how long it takes for them to get together. Sorry not sorry.Infighting: TBA
Relationships: Fink & Professor Venomous (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes), Lord Boxman/Professor Venomous (OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 54





	1. Part 1 Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, hullo yes, It's me. Sorrowwolf. Just so you know, this entire thing is just one big shit post, so if you were looking for something 100% serious, that's not happening. There definitely are serious moments, but there are also times where I go on a completely random rant about Neapolitan ice cream or something equally as stupid. Don't worry, you probably won't be hearing too much from me as the story goes along further though! I'm mostly here to tell you about how chapters 2,3, 8,9, and 20 are mostly just pre-existing episodes, so if you don't want to read episodes you can just skip those. I'll be posting multiple chapters at once when we come across those so you can skip them if you want! This is also my first fanfiction, so it probably won't be too good right away. Any way, I think that's my author's note for part one, now you may enjoy the horrible cringe!

_ The bass was loud. Too loud. _

Most of the parties that his fellow super villains threw were quiet, fancy, and incredibly boring. He hated them, but Professor Venomous would give anything to be at a normal party right now. This time, they were in some dark demonic mansion in some other dimension. The place was a disaster and it didn’t help that their  _ gracious _ host, a small scale villain going by Devil’s Dealer, was allowing her obnoxious minions to cause chaos by throwing random objects around and stealing valuables. In fact, if he didn’t know any better he’d think she was outwardly encouraging it. Professor Venomous’ nice suit was totally ruined and his normally purple face was now a splotchy mess of colors. He pulled out a cloth from his pocket to wipe his face off again for the millionth-

**_CRASH!_ **

Million and first time tonight. Or was it Millionth and one, maybe Million and oneth? Whatever the proper grammar was didn’t matter, he was covered in gross and unfamiliar food. He found himself wishing he had worn his usual navy blue turtleneck, black pants, and white heeled boots. Well, maybe not the boots. Those boots were too good for this. He was just going to stay against the wall and watch the chaos transpire from now on.

_ Giggle!  _ “Didja see that boss,”

The one saving grace of this Cob forsaken  _ mess _ was The Professor’s favorite minion, a little green rat girl he lovingly named Fink.

“Billiam totally just got dunked in the punch bowl! I bet he’s gonna start crying so hard!” She continued

“Haha, yeah I bet.” The professor responded

Sure enough, she was right. The little golden man started sobbing and yelling something about-

**_CRASH!_ ** _ Cob dammit all. _

He had to stop his people watching real quickly to wipe his face off.  _ Again. _ He sighed. Fink was too busy laughing her little head off at Billiam’s miss-fortune to notice her boss’s problems. 

_ At least someone was enjoying herself. _

He looked away from his minion just in time for-

“Oh Professor Venomous this is awful!”

Looks like Billiam Milliam made his way over to his side of the room in that short amount of time he wasn’t watching. Go figure.

“Just look at my outfit! OOOOOOH and my hair too!”

Venomous had grown used to Billiam’s rants. He was so rich he was literally made of gold, and yet he still ended up complaining over the smallest messes. The professor didn’t necessarily have much of a problem with Billiam’s eccentricities, and he may or may not have intentionally accidentally made small messes in Billiam’s presence many times before. Venomous just didn’t like it when someone else made the mess and Billiam came to him to complain. He rolled his eyes so hard he actually managed to notice the incoming ball of tentacles and slime heading his way this time.

“EVERYTHING’S RUINED!”

**_CRASH!_ **

He ducked just in time.

“I THINK MAYBE WE SHOULD TRY TAKING THIS SOMEWHERE SAFER.” Venomous had to raise his voice over the suddenly way louder music.

“GOOD IDEA.”

The Trio ran under the nearest table. Apparently Cosma and Vormulax had the same idea. Venomous thought he probably looked like a gay trainwreck, but the other two villains didn’t look much better. Cosma was an orange space lizard and wore what was probably a black ...dress? Maybe there was a corset? that was clearly beyond saving. Vormulax on the other hand, didn’t usually wear much of anything other than shoulderpads and maybe a pearl necklace if she was feeling fancy. Apparently human clothing didn’t usually fit well on purple demons, ghosts, or whatever the Hell she was. She was also a mess.

“You too?” Cosma asked

“Yeah.” Billiam and Venomous answered in unison

Fink cut in, “I THINK MY MY EARS ARE GONNA START BLEEDIN’!”

Venomous sighed “ You’re fine Fink. If it helps I brought your headphones just in case.”

In one smooth action, He pulled the headphones out of his jacket and Fink Yanked them out of his hands-

“GIMME!”

-before her boss could follow her request.

“So what are we supposed to do now?” Vormulax questioned

“I would say leave if we could.” Cosma growled

“There’s no telling what that little imp would do to us if we tried...” The professor spat venomously

Billiam chimed in, “Well it could be worse, we could be stuck in a room with Boxman!” 

That line earned a good laugh from the group

“Oh yeah he’d probably stop the party halfway through to yell at some puny children!” Vormulax Laughed.

“Yeah! Then he’d- he’d send a bunch of little children’s toys to- to” Cosma attempted to talk through her laughter.

“To get completely annihilated by some low level fools!” Billiam finished through tears.

They continued to laugh for a bit before The Professor corrected them, “You’re all putting way too much faith in his abilities. I mean come on, this is Lord Boxman, he’ll probably just blow himself up before he can even manage to send even a single robot over.”

They all chuckled a bit in agreement until Fink piped up

“Wait a second Boss, doesn’t Buttman still owe you a shipment?”

_ Teach me to order from him... _

“Yeah, it was due like three weeks ago…”

**_BOOM! CRASH!_ **

The table they were under suddenly flew up and all the dishes shattered on the ground around them. A cheerful little imp was gazing at the group of terrified disasters on legs with absolute glee.

“Oo goody goody! More toys to play with!”

Venomous would have to have a little talk with Boxman later, but for now he had other things to worry about. Namely the little monster smearing some mystery meal in his once perfect ebony hair.


	2. A Creative and Original Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's literally just the first part of we're captured. Not kidding, that's it.

“Boss, why couldn’t you just call him”

“I want to at least give him a chance to explain himself.”

The professor pulled his little minion of the convertible.

“But couldn’cha just do that over the phone?”

**_Slam!_ **

“Yeah, but I like to talk face to face when it comes to matters like these.”

“Face to face with Buttman?”

“Well…”

He didn’t really have an excuse and Fink kind of had a point. Although, it would be kind of rude to accept the idiot’s invite only to never show up at all and leave a text message simply saying “Hey, sorry I didn’t show up but I kind of hate you and want nothing to do with you!” He didn’t really care about his feelings, but he wasn’t a monster either. At any rate they were here now and there was no point in going back now, so he rang the doorbell.

...1 second...

...2 seconds...

...3 seconds...

…

...

...15 seconds...

He was really starting to regret coming here.

“Welcome, valued customer!”

 _Finally!_ The sweaty idiot looked like he had ran over here and hastily put himself together in a second or two. In fact, he could swear there were torn up pieces of some article of clothing on the ground around him. He was significantly shorter than Venomous and he was wearing a baby blue tuxedo. Lord Boxman was also so in shape, he was the literal shape of a circle. That is to say, he was actually in pretty decent shape health wise because his job involved a lot of heavy lifting and he somehow ran quite fast for his small size, he just happened to be shaped like a literal circle. He also had slicked back his usually messy green hair sitting on the human half of his head. However, the strangest part of the joke villain was hands down the chicken hand. You’d think a robotics expert would have some kind of cool cybernetic arm, but nope, it was a chicken leg.

“Hmm. Boxman.”

“Professor Venomous! So, so, so, good to see you!”

The shorter man awkwardly waddled up and made some sad attempt at a hug. Venomous could see the nervousness in the shorter man’s mis-matched robotic and human eyes.

 _Ew._ “Please, stop.”

Boxman must have been slightly wounded because he cleared his throat before continuing.

“Uh, yes. Well, I’m glad you could make it.”

Boxman continued stammering out some customer service spiel about quality time with clients. The professor wasn’t really paying much attention.

Venomous started taking off his lab coat while Fink eyed both the men carefully.

“Yes, and we have much to discuss.”

He was interrupted by Boxman’s Cob forsaken laugh.

“Oh! Let me get that for you-”

His offer was met with a swift kick from Fink as she snatched the jacket away.

“Aah!”

“No one takes the boss's coat but me, bub!”

Boxman’s shocked and confused face suddenly reminded him that the two had never officially met.

“Ah, yes. This is my minion, Fink.”

Fink blew a raspberry at Boxman and he decided to open his big dumb mouth and vomit words, “Oh my, organic. All my henchmen are robotic! Keeps it simple.”

Fink suddenly bit his hand. She was definitely getting ice cream for that one later.

“Yes, well, organic proved to be more reliable. Especially since, you know, I never got your last robotic shipment!” Venomous hissed in response.

“Ehehe, well, I do apologize!” Boxman started to spew more customer service bullshit, but Venomous was more focused on some strange noises in the background. 

“What was that?”

_Was that… children?_

Boxman suddenly interrupted his thoughts, “Those meddling… um… vegetables! Yes! From tonight’s vegetable medley, probably boiling over!”

_What?_

Boxman laughed nervously, “‘Scuse me.”

The shorter man suddenly ran off through the door, leaving behind a Boxman shaped hole to… somewhere. That was quite probably the dumbest excuse The Professor had ever heard. Whatever was actually going on, it gave Venomous some much needed time to check his surroundings. The area he was in had a lot of purples and reds. 

_Probably his favorite colors or something._

He also noticed some portraits of Boxman. No evil villain lair was complete without narcissistic paintings of yourself all over the walls. In fact, Venomous had a few of his own back at home. Suddenly an orange robot girl showed up from the direction Boxman left in.

_Great._

“Hi my Name is Shannon, and Daddy said I could sing you my song! Wanna hear it?” Declared the robot apparently named Shannon. The professor was pretty sure she was going to start singing no matter what his answer was.

“Eh, sure.”

“Okay! Ahem. When you’re climbin’ up a ladder, and you feel a little splatter-”

_Great x2. Let’s ruin my appetite while we’re at it too._

The Professor could swear he heard Boxman yelling out from wherever he was while Shannon sang the diarrhea song. He showed up a few seconds later, but the damage was already beyond done. Upon arrival Boxman shoved Shannon through a door while muttering something about “not singing that again” and “not trusting useless robots.”

_At least he got something right._

“Ah P-Professor, I’m so, so sorry about that… L-Let’s just get you seated at the table!”

There was no point in protesting as he was unceremoniously shoved into a gaudy purple room with an unnecessarily large table. There were also more self portraits on the walls here. The whole thing felt like Boxman was trying too hard to appeal to a man he only knew three things about: rich, purple, and evil scientist. Venomous was snapped out of his thoughts when Boxman pulled out a seat for him on one end of the table.

“Thank you.” Venomous said as he sat down.

“I’ll go get the meal ready!” Box nervously laughed a little as he disappeared into yet another room. The Professor was left alone with his thoughts for a while and decided to finish his observations from earlier.

_What is with this man and the color purple?_

Upon closer inspection, it looked like the room might have been put together recently and the wallpaper was pretty cheap. It didn’t help that Venomous didn’t really care for fancy dinner parties either. They were so stuffy, and boring.

**_BANG!_ **

Fink suddenly burst through one set of doors and Boxman appeared through another set carrying three plates, each with some unidentifiable charred mess on them. As Fink walked up to stand by Venomous’s side, Boxman messily laid each of the plates on the table before looking at Fink and suddenly realizing-

“Oh geez, she needs a high chair!”

“What! No I do NOT!” Fink protested, but Boxman was long gone.

“Dang. Hey Boss, I heard some dummies crawling around by the coat closet. That dumb closet was in a dumb place too!”

“Hmm…”

His earlier concerns were more than likely correct, but he didn’t have much time to think about it, since Boxman suddenly burst through the doors with a highchair and slammed it on the ground next to Venomous.

“Here you are!”

_How the hell were his doors still standing?_

Most of the doors weren’t anymore, but that's besides the point. Professor Venomous picked up Fink and stuffed her in the highchair. Once she was finally in the seat and secured, much to her displeasure, he placed her plate of ash in front of her. Having given up on verbally protesting, Fink took to poking at her… food? Instead.

“Don’t play with your food.” Venomous gently scolded her.

“But it tastes like foo foo! Fink Growled in response.

Boxman laughed nervously from the other side of the room before putting his foot on the table. The foot he had been repeatedly putting in his mouth throughout the night, on the table where they ate their food.

_Yeah, I’m definitely not eating anything now._

“I think it’s time for a toast- to the loveliest and most bestest…”

While Boxman continued to drone on about cob only knows what, Venomous noticed a red robot in some weird costume rising up in front of the table.

“... and a true inspiration to- Get out of here Darrell!” Boxman suddenly shouted before laughing nervously. The robot apparently named Darrell had disappeared.

“Forgive me, Boxman, but will the main entree be ready soon? I don’t have a lot of time.” Venomous really didn’t want to be here anymore.

While folding a little paper boat, Fink added, “He probably burned that too.”

“Wow. How’d you do that?” He never remembered teaching Fink that. She was definitely getting ice cream later.

“Aheheh, I-I assure you, in just a few moments, you will be enjoying a decadent meal with absolutely no surprises!”

**_BANG!_ **

As if on cue, three bizarre- chefs? Barged in through the doors carrying food. One was short and looked like a little kid wearing a fake mustache, another had purple hair and a mustache that also clearly didn’t belong, and the last mystery person was blue and muscular with yet another mis-matched mustache.

_Does anyone here know how to use a door normally?_

“Who’s hungry?”

Boxman cried, “I’m finished!”


	3. Chapter 2 Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abs.

“Who... are these people? Venomous questioned

The smaller mystery person knocked the polished turd Boxman made off the table with his oversized sleeves.

A clearly uncomfortable and nervous Boxman responded back, “Huh? U-uh, them? Well, they’re… uh… The caterers!”

“I thought you were doing the cooking.”

“Did you?” As Boxman was speaking, the purple haired caterer put a bib around his neck that read “baby boy” and it took everything in Venomous’s power to remain unfazed as opposed to bursting into laughter. 

“You must’ve-”

The blue caterer had dropped a plate of piping hot pasta all over Boxman’s lap.

“Oopsy woopsy!”

“My fault entirely.” Boxman chuckled through clenched teeth clearly trying to keep from exploding, “How’s your pasta, Professor?”

“Looks a little Bland.”

Venomous was honestly shocked Box could even manage bland.

“Freshy Peppa?” The purple haired caterer offered.

“Yes, please.”

“Okay! Just say when!” She started putting pepper on the “meal”

“When.”

She didn’t stop.

“When!”

**_ACHOO!_ **

The professor sneezed and growled leaving a massive cloud of pepper in front of him while Fink got the pasta that somehow ended up on his head off.

_ Cob, how do I always end up with food in my hair by the end of these things! _

Once all the pasta was removed, he turned to Box in time to see the blue caterer put pasta in his hair too.

Boxman screamed in response, “That’s it!”

“Uh, but that can’t be it! You haven’t had your just deserts-a!” The short caterer had brought in some pies.

“Finally!” Venomous was relieved to finally be getting out of this hell hole.

“Ooh! I hope-a you like the coconut cream!” 

His mustache fell off, revealing something eerily familiar. It was like he was looking at an old friend- no, an old enemy. But it couldn’t be, could it? That couldn’t be possible, and yet it was staring him right in the face.

“Wait a minute is that-”

Boxman’s unbridled rage interrupted him, “K.O., RAD, AND ENID!”

As if to emphasize his point, Boxman smashed his own chair over his knee. PV was so shocked by the familiarity of the small boy named K.O. that it took Fink getting pelted with a pie for him to notice the warzone he was currently in. He once again slithered under a table in the midst of dinner party chaos. He could hear the pies pelting the gaudy walls and table as he made his way to Boxman’s side, and couldn’t help but consider the mess an improvement on the trashy decor.

Once he got there he growled, “You had better have a good explanation for this.”

Fink hissed in agreement, “Yeah! Coconut cream?! What were you thinking?!”

“Professor, I-I-I...” Boxman stammered out before suddenly changing his tune entirely,

“Ooooooooh! I’ll destroy those brats for ruining dessert!”

As if on cue, the two robotic henchmen from earlier burst through the doors. Because of course there’s no other way to enter a room.

“Oh! Are we destroying brats?” Shannon asked

“Are we having dessert?” Darrel added before being thrown towards the villains’ hiding spot by a pie. 

Boxman caught his henchman only to coldly and cruelly fold him in half and reorganize his parts.The Professor studied the methodical and swift way he tore pieces from his bots and rewired them in new locations to create something new. Something that could strike fear into the hearts of villains and heroes alike… If it shot literally anything other than pies… No matter how safe and honestly kinda lame the ammo it used was, there was something strangely enthralling about watching the smaller man work. Just the other day, Venomous was mocking Boxman and his creations and called them simply “toys”. And yet, now he found himself regretting it as he watched Boxman catch the ammunition with his hands and load the newly built pie cannon. He ripped his coat and shirt off, revealing beautiful, glistening muscles that Venomous hadn’t even realized existed. Boxman tied his tie around his head, keeping the hair out of his intense expression. It was terrifying, yet Venomous didn’t feel scared of it.

“And now you’re trapped!” Boxman yelled as he started shooting the cannon at the heroes.

Why was he so into this? With every shot of the weapon, Boxman’s muscles flexed. Sweat started dripping down his screaming face- and his  _ pecs. _

_ No no. Ven, this is Boxman, we don’t… _

His thoughts trailed off as he couldn't help but lose himself in Boxman’s strong arms, and his flexing pecs, and his powerful abs normally hidden under a thick and warm layer of fat.

_ This had better not awaken anyth- A ABSABS ABSABS _

_ B B B B B _

_ S AB S SABSA ABS _

_ A A A A ABS _

_ B B BSABSA ABSABS abs _

_ Focus. There are more important things to worry about right now, like the money you owe, your job, why that kid looked so familiar,... muscles... _

He looked to the heroes who were thoroughly destroyed in an attempt to distract himself from his thoughts. Boxman’s creations were far more than simple “toys”. They were capable of far more destruction and chaos than Venomous realized. There was potential here, no wonder Boxman was a level -10. As The Professor observed the destruction and the amount of fun Boxman appeared to be having, he too wanted to join in.

“Boxman!” He snapped the smaller man out of the trance he seemed to be in, and Boxman instantly fell apart.

“Oh! Professor, please! I-I can explain! I can explain! I can- I can- Okay, I can’t explain. But this was not the way it was supposed-”

Venomous put his finger up to Boxman’s lips in order to shush him.

“May I?” He gestured towards Boxman’s beautiful pie cannon. 

“Oh… yes. By all means!” Box moved aside for Venomous

The heroes were struggling to get out of the pie-le as The Professor stretched in preparation and readied the- ...cannon?

“Dinner parties are just so… Stuffy. But vanquishing heroes- now that’s much more exciting!”

Fink yelled from atop the weapon, “Fire!”

The resulting pie launched the heroes straight through the wall and out of Boxmore. He stood there admiring his work while Fink fell off the cannon, and then he remembered the reason he was here in the first place.

“I have to be honest, Boxman. I agreed to come tonight with plans to sever our business relationship after dinner.” Venomous started with sickening apathy.

“What?!” Boxman interrupted. His voice was breaking and he sounded genuinely hurt.

_ Shit. _

Venomous continued smoothly, “You seemed too distracted lately. Though, now I understand why that was. Hard to find folks who value the sport in squashing heroes, and if all your robots can be as fun as this one,”

**_Bink.Bink._ ** He tapped the weapon.

“I’ll gladly order a thousand of them!” 

Now that he was done with his monologue, he turned to the teary eyed, whimpering mess that Boxman currently was.

“You… still… want my robots?”  **_sniffle._ ** “You still… wa… want me?”

Venomous simply raised his arms and chuckled, awaiting the incoming hug. Boxman responded by laughing and running full force into The Professor’s arms, which wasn’t exactly what he was expecting, but it didn’t matter. Venomous gently placed a hand on his shoulder while Boxman sobbed into Venomous’s turtleneck and said something muffled through giggles.Venomous didn’t generally like receiving hugs, but he didn’t really mind this one -aaaaaand then fink hit him with a boxing glove.

_ Damn. _

The professor looked out through the hole in the wall to see the night sky. 

“It’s getting late, and I need to get this one off to bed.” 

“Uh...i-it’s okay, My robots and I can clean this mess all on our own! No need to worry!” Boxman chuckled nervously

Venomous wasn’t really worried. And with a smile and a shrug he left with Fink. He had a good time, but he wasn’t really sure why. It was Boxman after all, he was just a joke. But then again, there was also that kid. It was as if his past had been staring him straight in the face.


	4. I Scream, You Scream, PV's Screaming on the Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Venomous has really bad migraines, but he always makes time for Fink. He also angsts over the past or something.

_ Today wasn’t going to be a good day.  _

Venomous could just tell. Not in the way where you get mugged in the streets and lose everything before getting shot in the head. No, the kind of day where you randomly wake up in a stream with a raging migraine but you don’t have enough medication to get through the day, so now you have to deal a boring meeting with boring villains saying boring things with a painful headache all while pretending you’re okay and this totally isn’t the most boring boring thing to ever boring. That kind of day. Thankfully, the meeting was just about over.

“All right professor, we’ve sent the technos. Just make sure this venture goes better than the last one, or else.” Cosma coldly stated.

Smooth as butter, The Professor responded, “Oh don’t worry, I think you’ll really like this one…”

“We better. Meeting adjourned.”

The board hung up.

_ Finally _

Venomous’s lair was a very modern mansion with a lot of snake themes. There were a lot of windows, partially because he liked the aesthetic, but also because it allowed more of the warm sunlight to reach him. The room he was currently in was a meating room. The room wasn’t much different in materials, color, and aesthetics to the rest of his lair. He sat in a blue chair resembling a snake. Most of his chairs were like this. A lot of the lair was composed of shades of white, tan, and peach colors and many rooms had hardwood flooring. He was really fond of having very clean and neat spaces. But none of that could really be appreciated at the moment.

Venomous clutched at his forehead in pain.

_ I just have to last a little while longer. _

He opened the door to Fink cheerfully yelling at him, evoking the vengeance of Cob upon him as his migraines worsened.

“Hiya Boss! Are ya’ done with the meeting?! Can we get ice cream now?! Can we?! Can we?! Can-”

“Fink please!”

He had completely forgotten he promised to get her ice cream last night. Fink stared at him with a hurt expression for a bit before noticing the hand on his forehead and the grimace on his face.

Fink whispered and giggled a little as she spoke, “Oh. sorry Boss! I’m gonna be extra quiet for you today! We’re still gettin’ ice cream though right?”

“We’ll get some after I’ve bought more medication for myself, come on.”

He put on his lab coat, a baseball cap, and sunglasses before getting in the convertible with his minion. He didn’t want people to see him out in public with Fink in broad daylight because he didn’t like the idea of people thinking he was soft or something. He was only taking her out because it’s important to keep the moral of your minions high so they’re more efficient and less likely to stage some sort of uprising. Definitely not taking her out because he had a massive soft spot for the little green rat. Not at all!

“Are we there yet?”

“I thought you said you were going to be quiet for me.”

Fink whispered, “Oh! Right! Are we there yet?”

“Almost.”

He pulled into the parking lot for the pharmacy, making extra sure to use four spaces at once. He unbuckled Fink from the convertible, and buckled her up to her child safety leash. As he was browsing for something to feed his sweet tooth, he turned a blind eye to Fink shoplifting just about every piece of candy she could get her gloved little paws on and only stopped her when she tried to steal a box of condoms. He wasn’t ready for that conversation yet and he wasn’t sure he ever would be.

“Ah!” 

He finally found the brand of suckers he was looking for and took the bag with him while he waited for the pharmacist to give him the painkillers he originally came here for.

“Boss I’m boooooooored!” Fink declared while being practically drug across the floor at this point.

“Almost done.”

“Here you are sir, that’ll be 134.99 Technos.”

_ Hah. Feels good to be rich. _

He paid and left with his legitimately and slightly less legitimately obtained goods. Upon finally arriving at Fink’s favorite ice cream place, she ordered coconut and he ordered Strawberry sherbet. Strawberry was hands down the most  _ evil  _ ice cream flavor of all time. Vanilla was boring and superhero was, well,  _ heroic _ . Chocolate, cookie dough, and mint chocolate chip were all far too popular while Neopolitan was just three kids in a trenchcoat pretending to be a real ice cream flavor. No, strawberry was the only flavor Venomous could ever eat. It also had to be sherbet, society was always telling you to drink your vegetables and eat your milk. But the man couldn’t tell him what to do, no siree, Venomous was the man now. He was going to get all that osteoporosis baby. Also he was mildly allergic, that was very much a thing.

“Over here Boss!” Fink directed Venomous to a nice little bench under a tree that was far away from anyone else. He took out a juice box with some purple magical demon girl on it, and gave the box to Fink. The company went out of business during some distant era, but he had ways of getting whatever Fink wanted. As he watched Fink suck down the juice, he wondered what the demon girl must have felt like when the world she knew was suddenly set on fire. Perhaps maybe she was the one who started the blaze in order to create a new life, or maybe she was just like Venomous. 

_ Nah, what am I thinking, she was probably just a random character someone was paid to make up. _

No matter the circumstances of her existence, something about that funky little magical girl demon reminded Venomous of himself. Perhaps it was the purple skin, or the shade of red in her eyes that was eerily similar to his old helmet’s visor. Or maybe it wasn’t her at all, but rather that K.O. kid the other day. He hadn’t been able to rest well the past couple days since Venomous saw him. He couldn’t get that face out of his head; Venomous needed to know the truth.

“Hey Boss! If you ain’t gonna eat your ice cream can I have it?”

“Hmm?”

He had forgotten all about his ice cream which was now dripping down his hand.

“Oh, oops. No, I’m eating it, I just zoned out for a bit.” He sighed a little as he spoke.

“You okay Boss?”

“Yeah, I think I just need some pape-”

“I’ll get them!”

Fink giggled as she dug into a little bag they brought in order to get some paper towels.

“I gotcha’ Boss!” She proudly declared as she cleaned the melted ice cream off his hand.

He would have to look further into the kid later to see if his concerns really were true. Did he actually have a son? He started eating the partially melted ice cream. Each lick tainted with the memory of the past that seemed to be catching up with him. He had been running from his past for so long, the possibility of Silver Spark having his son had never crossed his mind. K.O. had Silver’s face, but his hair was a lot more like Venomous’s. It didn’t help that the kid was about the right age too, it was around six to eleven years ago after all. 

Six to eleven years ago… Such a different time, such a different Venomous. Hell, he didn’t even go by Professor Venomous then. Back then, he wasn’t even a villain. His name was Laserblast, and he was a charismatic hero with the most famous hero organization of all, P.O.I.N.T. Cob how he hated himself during that time. He was so naive and trusting, he never should have let Silver get so close. But then, by some strange twist of fate, everything changed. He lost everything, and yet that led to him having everything. But he still couldn’t help but think to himself,

_ Was it all worth it? _

_ “He wasn’t strong enough to survive something like this!”  _ The last words he heard from Silverspark rang through his head, causing him to crush the ice cream cone in his hands.

“Boss! You’re s’posed to eat the ice cream, not wear it!” The little green rat scolded him the same way he often scolded her. 

“Oops.”

The pair began cleaning the ice cream off Venomous.

_ Yes, it was. _


	5. Boxman Finally Does His Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boxman sent something extra as an apology for his previous tardiness.

_The professor gazed at the boxes labeled “BM” with his hands on his hips._

_It’s about time._

It’s been about two weeks since The Professor paid a visit to Boxmore, just in time for his residual positive feelings to finally wear off. Or at least that’s what he told himself. He was just starting to regret praising Boxman the last time they saw each other, but he was happy that his robotic shipment finally arrived and was honestly kind of excited to play around with them. He started opening the packages. Hell, maybe the robots would even make good babysitters for Fink. Each robot introduced themself and went straight to work on what he assigned them to do. His personal favorite was a round purple robot named Ernesto. After Venomous and Fink had opened each of the packages, he decided to sit down and take a short break. 

**_Vrrt Vrrt._ **

Venomous checked his phone. Apparently Boxman sent him a message. He had been in regular contact with the cyborg for updates since they last met.

~Heya Professor! Has your shipment arrived yet? I sent you something special as an apology!

Something special? Venomous hadn’t seen anything other than what he ordered. What in the world was he-

“Hey Boss, there’s an extra box here!”

Sure enough, there was another box marked “BM” on the floor.

_This must have been what he was talking about._

Venomous grabbed a knife and prepared to open the box.

“Can I open it? Pweeeeeeeaaaaase!” Fink squeaked and gave her boss puppy dog eyes.

“Fine, just be careful with the knife.”

She squealed with delight and snatched the knife out of his hand before cutting the box open as dangerously as physically possible while somehow managing to avoid hurting herself. Venomous sighed and placed a hand on his forehead.

“Ooh.”

“Hmm?”

“Boss, look!”

He took a step closer to see the contents inside the box. 

“Oh.”

Inside the box was the pie cannon thing from the last time Venomous had seen Boxman. He remembered this thing being a lot of fun, only this time something was different about it. Boxman had more time to work on this one, so it was a lot more sturdy and efficient. It also appeared to be able to shoot more than just mere pies this time. He pulled the weapon out of the box with a little help from Fink.

“Oh.” He repeated more smoothly and venomously this time, “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun with this.”

Fink started to jump around excitedly while laughing and cheering. Venomous decided he had let Boxman wait long enough on a reply.

Yes.~

He didn’t really feel like typing more than one word. The professor looked away from his phone for a second.

“Can we go shoot some dumb heroes now? She was practically vibrating with excitement.

**_Vrrt Vrrt._ **

No, wait, that was his phone. He’d check it later; it was probably just Boxman again.

“Of course.”

**_Vrrt Vrrt._ **

Fink gasped, “Woohoo!” She started bouncing off the walls and clapping with excitement while Venomous started putting his hat and glasses on.

**_Vrrt Vrrt._ **

That was really starting to get on his nerves now.

**_Vrrt Vrrt._ **

_Holy farmer, what do you want?!_

He checked his phone just in time for another message to come in.

~Oh I’m so glad to hear that! What do you think about the effeminate I made to it?

~*effeminate

~imkcoekswencdksd

~*Improvements

~I think your very masculine I swear!

All of Venomous’s irritation instantly washed away. He chuckled a bit to himself as another text came in correcting the mistake made in the last text. Boxman was so pathetic.

“What’s so funny Boss?”

“Oh, nothing.”

He almost sent “I’m excited to test it out”, but second guessed himself last second.

The improvements are certainly interesting. I’m 

taking Fink out to test them now.~

The second sentence would hopefully deter Boxman from sending too many more messages, but he wasn’t too confident. Venomous finished putting his disguise on and buckled Fink in.

“But Booooooss, I wanna drive!”

“No, you’ll wreck the car.”

“Awww!”

He closed the car door and got in the driver’s seat.

**_Vrrt Vrrt._ **

He sighed and decided to check his phone one last time before he left.

~Sweet, just let me know what you think when you’re done! I can’t wait to hear about it!

He’d complain about the overabundance of exclamation marks at the end of every sentence, but he honestly didn’t care enough. He started the car and drove off to his destination. Their victim was a lower tier solo hero, named…? He didn’t really bother to try learning her name or the details about her outside of “some angel chick” or whatever. They were going there to destroy her lair, or at the very least, cause some sort of disruption. Do you even call a hero’s place of residence a lair? He wasn’t really sure and he didn’t really care. He would soon realize that he probably should have told Fink where they were heading.

“Are we there yet?

“No.”

…

“Are we there yet?”

…

“NO.”

…

“Drive Fasterrrr!”

Thirty. Minutes. Fink had been pestering him for thirty long minutes.

“BOSS!”

“Soon, Fink!”

They parked a short walk away from their destination. He unbuckled Fink and unloaded the upgraded cannon Boxman sent him. He grunted as he struggled to lift the cannon out of the vehicle. When he finally got it out, it immediately fell to the ground and he had to give his weak nerd body a moment to rest and catch his breath.

“Alrighty then.” Venomous began once he had regained his composure, “So, where exactly are we taking this and how are we going to get it over there?”

“Um, oo! Maybe we can try carryin’ it to those bushes over there!”

Fink pointed to a small grouping of bushes with a clear shot at the hero’s… castle of loneliness? It also provided pretty good cover for Fink to hide behind. It was a perfect plan!

“Well, let’s get started!”

It was not a perfect plan. Firstly, Fink and Venomous were both kind of lacking in the muscles department and the cannon was incredibly unwieldy. In all honesty, the cannon seemed slightly bulkier and heavier than last time. The whole process was made significantly worse by the slow progress. Due to the size and weight of the cannon, the pair could only move so fast while carrying it. Not only that, but they had to take frequent breaks to rest up for about five minutes after every couple of feet or so. They took so long, that Venomous was pretty sure their target was aware of them and was probably waiting for them to attack first out of pity.

Upon arriving at the bushes, the duo collapsed on the ground in a panting and gasping heap. Venomous was going to have to ask Boxman about the weight later, but right now he was hungry. He brought some snacks, Fink’s favorite juice boxes, and some wine for himself. The wine was a power move. He really wasn’t expecting it to take this long to get the weapon into place, but oh well. He’d likely have to cough up a few extra technos in order to feed Fink later, but he didn’t mind. As the pair were eating, he noticed another issue with the cannon. The bright red color scheme would undoubtedly attract attention if it hadn’t already. It didn’t exactly hide well in the earthy browns and cool greens they were currently surrounded by and he was going to have to ask Boxman about that too. Once they were done eating and resting up, Venomous got up to get his chair.

“Where ya goin’ Boss? I'm about ta start!”

“I’m just getting a chair. Don’t wait on my account.”

“Cool! Imma destroy EVERYTHING! AHAHAHAHAHAH”

The sounds of Fink’s evil laughter and explosions echoed behind him as he grabbed a lawn chair he packed and settled down to watch. The chair was also a power move. He poured himself a glass of wine. He wasn’t about to drink out of the bottle, that was too evil even for him. Besides, packing that glass made a pretty good power move. Power moves aside, Fink appeared to be having a lot of fun. She had left a nice sized crater in the side of the building, and at least three more in the ground.

**_Boom!_ **

Make that at least four. He made a mental note of the slower shot speed in the improved weapon compared to the original. The angel hero was dexterously weaving in and out of the weapon’s fire until Fink landed a direct hit.

“Haha! Teach you dum-dum! Huh?”

The hero came out from behind a shield Venomous didn’t see before, and she was mostly unscathed. He was trying to figure out where it came from when it suddenly hit him, literally. She tossed the shield at him knocking wine all over him. After hitting him, it began to fly back in her direction as if some magical force was calling it back.

“Hey!”

While she was distracted, Fink took aim again and fired. Unfortunately the hero got her shield back just in time to block the shot again. While the smoke was still clearing, she sprouted wings and took off. While she was in the air, her shield suddenly turned into a sword.

_Maybe I should have done more research…”_

Whatever the case, it was too late to have regrets now and Venomous had to find a safer place to observe the battle. He was also completely soaked. The hero began descending on Fink and the weapon, making yet another issue with it suddenly clear to him as Fink tried to move it. She only tried for a second before realizing the hopelessness of her current situation and opting to run as far away as her little rat legs would let her.

 _Slash!_ The hero’s sword cut cleanly through the barrel.

**_Boom!_ **

In response, the cannon exploded. Fink got far enough away that the brunt of the explosion missed her, but not far enough to avoid the shockwave. She was thrown into the bushes and rolled around on the ground for a bit. Venomous started sprinting in her direction, but he stopped when Fink got up and brushed herself off. He was relieved to see she was perfectly fine and Venomous calmed down. Although the weapon was destroyed, the battle wasn’t over just yet. Fink had a trump card, the collar around her neck was specially designed to give the wearer a boost of power if fed the most sought after power source among villain circles, a glorb. Which, very obviously, was a glowing orb. Whoever named them was a person after his own heart, because word play was the bomb.

“Haha, Dum-dum! This aint even my final form!”

It was also great in the sense that it offered a pretty cool, spiky costume change. She fed a few glorbs into the chamber on the front of her collar and transformed into what he dubbed “Turbo Fink”. This sent her power levels flying over nine-thousand. Okay, not really, but it definitely made her way more powerful.

“Hahahaha!”


	6. Alakazoo This Chapter is Now Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5 seconds of battle and the rest is Venomous trying to work. Unfortunately, Boxman won't leave him alone.

_ She lunged at the hero repeatedly with a glowing, powerful aura surrounding her claws. _

Each attack was countered and dodged. She giggled and launched herself at the hero again as the hero swiftly turned her sword into a shield and pushed her away. Upon being pushed, Fink flew into the air and started launching herself again and again at more rapid speeds. 

Fink attacks; the hero dodges to the right.

The hero attacks; Fink dodges to the left.

The hero continues her attack; Fink flies up into the air.

There were rapid fire attacks in the air as the pair traded blows. Venomous believed he had finally found a safe place to watch the battle and cleaned the spilled wine off himself. As he settled himself back down, the hero turned her weapon into a polearm of sorts. She readied herself to kit the rat out of the air but left herself wide open in the process.

Fink grabbed the weapon and threw the hero out of the air.

“Haha, Dum-Dum! Is that all ya got!”

Fink stopped looking at her foe in order to let out an evil laugh. The hero turned the polearm into a lasso and tossed it at the now distracted Fink. It was a direct hit.

“Wha?”

She started pulling Fink toward her.

“Not gonna work!”

Fink blasted her way out of the ropes and flew off. She dive bombed her adversary below her a few more times while laughing evilly.

“HAHAHAHAHA!”

Her powers suddenly fizzled out mid air.

“Uh-oh…”

She began to fall rapidly out of the sky.

“AAAH!”

_ Shit. _

Professor Venomous tossed his chair and wine to the wind and sprinted after Fink. He got there just in time to keep her from hitting the ground and immediately began sprinting again.

“Time to go!”

He sprinted up to the convertible with Fink in his arms and threw her in haphazardly.

**_Slam!_ **

Venomous started the car and floored it so hard he was pretty sure his boot went through the floor of the car. After a while of driving well over 80mph above the speed limit, he slowed down. He checked his rear view mirrors to make sure no one was following him and noticed it was getting late. 

**_Grrr…_ **

Fink’s stomach growled like a wild beast, and Venomous’s own stomach felt like it was trying to eat him alive.

“Hungry?”

“I’m so hungry, I could- I could… Eat the whole planet!”

“Oh really now?”

“Yeah! Can we get WcDonald's?”

“Fink, you know I can buy anything right?”

“Yeah! And WcDonald’s is somethin’, and I want it!”

Venomous sighed, “Fine…”

“Yaay!”

The pair had a lot of fun today, perhaps Boxman has the right idea about villainy. Venomous came to the conclusion that the only problem was that he just didn’t have the focus to really pull it off properly. Maybe the other villains were wrong about him? He would have to thank Boxman for the weapon later, maybe even order another one after making a few suggestions. The anniversary of Fink and Venomous’s first meeting was coming up soon after all.

Shortly after they finished eating, Venomous realized it was past Fink’s bed time. He still had a load of work he was supposed to get to today, but that little venture was pretty fun. It’s just unfortunate it took up the entire day. Fink had fallen asleep in the convertible on their way back to the lair. He parked the car back in the garage, and picked up the sleeping rat ever so carefully. She stirred a little, but was otherwise out cold. Fink hadn’t been this worn out since- since… never really. He gently placed her in her giant coconut bed, and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. Upon slowly closing the door, he remembered that he hadn’t thanked Boxman properly yet. He thought of all the possible responses he could send:

It was too unwieldy, next time I’d like it to be a bit lighter and not as brightly colored.~

_ No, that’s too ungrateful. It was a gift after all. _

Suddenly, Venomous knew just what to say.

I enjoyed using it, but I have a few suggestions.~

There, that would probably be fine.

_ Wait, maybe that was still too ungrateful. Wait, no. I’m a villain, I shouldn’t be so worried about hurting someone’s feelings. _

He shook his head and walked into his lab. He had way too much riding on his current project to worry about what some second rate, useless villain thought. He couldn’t afford to sleep tonight either, no matter how badly he wanted to flop down in his luxurious bed and allow himself to be held in the sweet embrace of sleep. His mind couldn’t help but wander to the thought of being held in a tight embrace by-

**_Vrrt vrrt._ **

He shook his head more aggressively this time.

~I’m so glad to hear it, what kind of Improvements did you have in mind?

It was a little unwieldy and the color stood 

out a bit too much, but it worked great 

otherwise.~

All right, he was getting to work now. He began gathering the chemicals he would nee-  **_Vrrt vrrt._ **

~?

What?~

~”Unwieldy”

It was too heavy.~

He was expecting the conversation to end with a simple “Okay”.

~What do you mean? I could carry it just fine!

_ Ok what? That thing had to have weighed at least a ton, how the Hell did- _

**_Vrrt vrrt._ **

_ Another one already? _

~Sorry! I didn’t account for my own strength!

~So sorry!

It’s fine, just keep that in mind next time.~

Alright. Conversation over. Now he could get back to wor-  **_Vrrt vrrt._ **

~Wait, next time?

I’m ordering another one.~

~Oh great! I’ll get yo work on it right away!

~*to

~my finger slipped!

He considered continuing the conversation before remembering why he was in the lab in the first place. He had to get back to work on these projects or he might incur the wrath of the Board of Villains. They weren’t his only source of funds by a long shot, but they were the biggest and most reliable. Losing their trust would be a terrible mistake. He began carefully pouring one highly reactive chemical into another, this required complete and total focus to get right…

…

It was a succe-

**_Vrrt vrrt._ **

_ Thank cob that didn’t happen a few seconds earlier. _

The mixture went from a clear, odorless liquid to a bright purple and it smelled like… something? He wasn’t really sure what that smell reminded him of, but it wasn’t what it was supposed to be yet.

~so, whatcha doing?

Work.~

~WHAT?

~Professor it’s practically midnight!

And?~

~why are you awake!

~*?

Why are you awake?~

He turned back to his work. If he was going to get this right he had a lot more work ahead of him. He mixed other less volatile chemicals into the mixture, 

~That’s not the punt!

~*point

Yes it is.~

Took notes,

~no it isn’t!

Heated it up, 

Are you sure?~

mixed more things in, 

~YES!

and poured things out. 

Boxman, I’m messing with you.~

He continued to work for a while as Boxman kept sending him “Go to sleep” messages regularly. It really should have annoyed him, but instead he found himself giggling like a little school girl as he found new ways to mess with Boxman through text. Through finishing what he was currently working on, to passing off more paperwork to his new Ernesto, through starting a new bio engineering project that an important client had ordered, to whatever else he wanted to do that night, Boxman was there with progressively worsening typos and overly auto corrected sentences. After a few hours, they had ceased entirely. For some reason, Venomous felt disappointed. Or was that just exhaustion? Wait, when did he fall asleep on the floor? What time was it? His brain hurt and he wasn’t really sure what was going on any more, so it was probably about time he went to sleep. But then again, a little more wouldn’t hurt- aaaand now he was laying on the floor again.

He really hadn’t gotten much done today, but he had a lot of fun. Venomous began to feel guilty. He had far too much work to do for him to be wasting his time in such stupid ways. What was he thinking? Attacking such a low tier villain, eating at WcDonald’s of all places, and worst of all, giggling over stupid messages from someone as useless as Boxman? What the hell was wrong with him? He had to get up. He had to get back to his work. He had nothing done. All he had were scattered papers, scattered experiments, and scattered thoughts. Everything was scattered and he was stuck laying on the cold hard floor. Perhaps he should have listened, but then he would have gotten less done. No, he shouldn’t have even interacted in the first place. Everything hurt. Venomous fell asleep there and felt sick upon waking up the next day. Thankfully he’s pretty good at pretending to be okay, so he got away with working that day.


	7. Under Surveillance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boxman made too many things, so now PV has to go look at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hullo, it's me again, sorry for not posting right away; I kinda got distracted by harvest moon (good game series by the way). Also side note, a new chapter was added in right after this one. The episode based chapters are now 8, 9, and I think 20 but the last one might change in the future. If you want to skip those when they come out, you are free to do so.

“All right, If she’s hungry or thirsty there’s food for her in the fridge,”

Boxman got too excited when making the improvements and made multiple different models, so he wanted Venomous to come over and pick which one he liked the most. Since Venomous wanted it to be a gift for the upcoming anniversary of when he brought Fink home for the first time, she would be staying behind.

“Bedtime is at ten,”

“Ok!”

“Try to refrain from stealing anything,”

“Pfft, like I would ever do anything like that!” Karen crossed her gloved arms and blew some of her poorly bleached hair off her tan face.

He needed a babysitter for Fink, but most people were too scared of her to do it. The only person crazy enough to take the job was his local crazy and literal cat lady, Karen. She was a bit of a kleptomaniac, but Venomous was more worried about Fink hurting the washed up fool or her cats than he was about Karen doing literally anything.

“Keep glorbs far away from her or you’re as good as dead,”

“Wait, what?” Her fluffy black tail and ears drooped.

“She may also try escaping the lair by any means necessary, including by blasting a hole in the wall,”

Keren’s green cat eyes widened in fear, “WHAT?!”

“And try to keep her out of my lab, I’m working on some pretty important projects and I don’t want her to hurt herself. Don’t worry about it too much though, the door’s locked.”

“Oh! Well I think we can handle that!” Karen’s ears and tail bounced back up to their default positions. “You don’t have to worry about a thing Professor Venomous! Or should I say, Professor Hunk!”

Karen pointed Finger guns and stared at Venomous expectantly. Venomous simply growled to himself before turning around and leaving.

“... Oh wait, but Dr. Purple’s pretty great too. Ooo! Wait, wait, wait, I got it! Professor Money Bags! No, wait… that’s terrible…”

She probably continued like that for a while, but Venomous stopped paying attention a while ago. He put on some smooth jazz and started the convertible up. He was on his way to Boxmore now. The drive was calm, no one would dare mess with a villain of Venomous’s level! Then again, tires aren’t exactly people. They might mess with him by, say, being flat for example. Just like one now was.

_ I could’ve sworn I checked that before I left… _

Venomous parked on the side of the road and got out of the convertible to check the tire. The tire looked like any normal tire at first until he noticed what appeared to be small puncture holes in it. He figured it was probably from a certain someone trying to stick the whole vehicle into her belt’s or bracelets’ pocket dimensions.

_ Cob dammit all, I’m definitely docking Karen’s pay for this little stunt. _

Thankfully, he always kept a spare tire in the trunk of the car. He also knew a thing or two about replacing a tire from back before he was a rich supervillain. In just a few short moments, the damaged tire was replaced and he started driving again.

He had forgotten all about the damaged tire as the drive became calm and relaxing again. The roads were shockingly clear today, so he didn’t have to worry about accidentally hitting someone else and could go as fast as he wanted. He looked out at his surroundings and watched as he zipped past the trees. Deforestation sounded pretty fun, so maybe he should cut down all these trees and sell the wood for big money. The more he thought about it though, the more he realized how difficult it would be for him to do that with how frail his current body was. He suddenly found himself wishing he had those big muscles from his hero days again. Maybe he could even try working out again, or here’s a bright idea, he could turn his attention back to the road. You should always pay attention to the road, and if Venomous had looked back even a second later, he wouldn’t have noticed that “Road closed” sign in time. He stomped on the breaks and lurched to a stop just in time to avoid an accident.

_ That’s strange… _

There was no reason this road should have been closed. He decided to take a detour just in case there was a particularly dangerous reason the road was closed. Who knows, maybe it was some sort of villain trap that expected him to break the rules or something. After a while of continuing onwards, he realized that perhaps it was possible the  _ detour _ was the trap. The lack of other drivers on the road became suddenly much more alarming rather than calming. Not even the smooth Jazz was calming his growing paranoia. He looked in his rear view mirrors only to notice that the roads were one car less empty. The vehicle was oddly familiar and had tinted windows to hide the driver’s identity.

_ P.O.I.N.T. _

Venomous tried to remain calm, but he was definitely being watched. He slowly sped up. The vehicle matched his pace and eventually began to get faster. He sped up further. Venomous took a detour hoping to lose them. No luck. He sped up more frantically. Eventually, he was going the convertible’s maximum speed, but the assailant was still on his tail. Detour after detour, but they kept up. So close. So very close.

PANIC.

And then, calm.

Venomous had found himself on a crowded road. He took this as the perfect opportunity to blend in and lose the vehicle that was tailing him. He checked his mirrors, they were gone. He sighed in relief, he was safe. They couldn’t catch him here, it would cause too much of a disruption. And then it hit him. He was horribly lost.

After a little while of driving, he found his way to Boxmore. He was late. Okay, technically he was on time, but Venomous considered that late as he liked being a good hour early to everything. He rang the doorbell and waited… and waited…………………..

“Professor Venomous!” And there he was, this time in his more usual lab coat rather than the tux last time. “H-how have you been Professor?”

“Busy. Can we make this quick? I’m kind of behind on my work at the moment.”

“Oh. That’s unfortunate. I-I’m terribly sorry for dragging you away from your work!” Boxman nervously laughed in response as he began walking forward without checking to see if Venomous was following behind him. Venomous had to push himself a little to catch up.

“I, uh, may have gotten a little carried away, eheh…” The smaller villain fidgeted around nervously as they continued down a long, purple and red industrial hall. It was quite messy and had a few Darrels loitering about.

“GET BACK TO WORK!”

The robots quickly scattered as their boss yelled, responding only with a simple “Yes Daddy!” as they ran.

“It’s no big deal, just gives me more options.” Venomous responded after Boxman nervously turned back to him and fidgeted a little.

“I should have the weapons you ordered in here… somewhere...” He opened the door to some sort of messy workshop and began digging around shelves and boxes he had scattered all over the place. There were blueprints scattered all over the place too, desks, mega computers, the floor, nowhere was safe. Besides that, there was also an anvil, what appeared to be broken pieces of conveyor belt strewn across the floor in one corner, and a decrepit couch begging for death hidden in the other corner. While Boxman continued digging around and mumbling something to himself, Venomous decided to take a look at some of the blue prints. A lot of them were just upgrades for various pre existing robots and some were ideas for new robots. Professor Venomous was exceptionally interested in a blueprint for some version of the weapon he ordered. It looked like it had-

**_CLANGLANGLINKLANK!_ **

“There we are!” Boxman had suddenly thrown all of them on the ground. 

Boxman said some other things after that but Venomous’s ears were still ringing and he was preoccupied trying to figure out how the cyborg managed to carry all of that at once. There were about five total. They came in various sizes and some even had slightly different shapes. They all had less bright color schemes than before, but were still interesting and aesthetically pleasing. The first and third were muted shades of purple, the second one was a very pretty shade of blue, the fourth was a paler red, and the last one was green. Based on Boxman’s visual demonstration, all but the fourth and first ones seemed to have some type of cloaking technology, leading him to believe that those ones came first. Venomous regained his hearing and attention sometime into the description of the third one.

“... It’s pretty small so it’s a lot more portable and even Fink can use it! Unfortunately, I kinda had to sacrifice some o’ the firepower to get it so small and light, It also fires a lil’ slow, but it shouldn’t be too big a deal for you Professor, heh!”

Boxman moved over to the fourth weapon after Venomous simply hummed in response.

“I’m pretty sure you won’t like this one since it’s a lot like the first one I sent, but I thought ‘what the heck I’ll give it shot’ and here it is!” He slapped the weapon’s sides before continuing, “It’s probably still a tad heavy for you, but I did attempt to make it a lil’ lighter so it won’t be as hard to lug around, eheh! It shoots about the same as it did before, so overall not much different.”

“Okay.”

Boxman continued his excited rambling with the last weapon, “Last but not least, we got this baby!”  **_BONK!_ ** He slapped it extra hard, “Now this one, I might of gone a bit far off your instructions, but I think you're gonna really like this one! I made it shoot faster, but I also gave it cup holders, ‘cus why not!” He demonstrated by pressing a button on the side, activating the cup holders. “Ooh, there’s also this thing where you can pull it apart and put it back together real easy so it doesn’t even matter how light it is if ya’ can just take the pieces separately!” Boxman’s extra excitement revolving around this one weapon was incredibly convincing on it’s own. The way he hopped around and pointed at each individual feature while almost seeming to drape himself over it at one point, was strangely enjoyable. “...Oh! I forgot to tell you the best part! While I was working, I was like, ‘Boxy, ya know what would be real cool? LASERS!” He suddenly pressed a button that caused a massive laser to shoot a hole cleanly through too many rooms to count on the average human hands, so at least 9. The laser also cut through an Ernesto or two on it’s way through, causing a massive explosion afterwards that pushed Venomous back a little all while Boxman was cackling like a madman. Such a blatant disregard for safety and the well being of Boxman’s own lair were strangely intriguing to Venomous. Boxman’s laughter died out at some point, but Venomous was too lost in the beautiful inferno in front of him to notice at first. He needed this one. I mean, come on, it had explosions AND a Cob damn laser beam. That’s pretty epic.

“I went a little too far again, eh…”

“I’ll take all of them except the fourth one.”

“Wait, really? I’ll get my robotic henchmen to pack them up for you before you go! Are you sure you don’t wanna test ‘em out first?”

“I’d love to, but like I said, I’m kind of behind on my work.” 

“Oh…Okay! I’ll just make sure everythings ready to go for you!”

The shorter man gave Venomous a big hug. Venomous was probably never going to get used to the hugging, but he tolerated it coming from Boxman. As Venomous made his way back through the industrial halls of Boxmore, now with some fresh laser induced windows, he was honestly more concerned about the vehicle trailing him on his way here and the strange string of events leading up to it than he was about the work piling up. He didn’t want Boxman’s pity. As he entered the convertible and began his drive, he grew increasingly worried about his future and his past. He didn’t want to go back to that life. He didn’t want them to find him. To find out the truth. He didn’t want to see their faces and hear their voice. He didn’t want to go back. Maybe he should just run away again? No, he couldn’t do that to Fink. He also had far too much for that to be a viable option. He should have been more careful, more sneaky. P.O.I.N.T. was coming. Their weapons. Their training. Their everything was far better than what any villain could even hope to have. They probably even had greater numbers considering they recently opened that academy.

His thoughts were suddenly cut off as he was surrounded. He could hear his heart beating. The vehicles slowed to a stop forcing him to stop as well. His heart beat louder. He was instructed to get out of the car. _ Louder. _ He opened the door.  **_Louder._ ** He stepped out.  **_LOUDER._ **

Black.

Light.

Fire. 

He didn’t remember what happened, but he had a killer headache and had apparently defeated the assailants with the laser weapon. He kept some painkillers and a water bottle on him at all times in cases like these. He couldn’t remember how long he had these migraines and breaks in his memory, mostly because he just couldn’t remember much of anything. He had ways of dealing with it though, like sucking one of the lollipops he kept conveniently stashed all over the place. He finished taking his pain killers and continued on his way home, believing his purchases were worth it. The babysitter wasn’t worth it though. The lair was trashed, and Fink was more hyper than usual.


	8. Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Venomous met Fink 3-6 years ago on this day. Since neither know the rat's true birthday, this is the closest they can get.

“Wakeupwakeupwakeup!” Fink shouted.

She was vigorously shaking him awake, and then Fink suddenly stopped. Venomous was happy for all of two seconds before Fink sent the full weight of her tiny rat body crashing down on him.

“Mmmf! Okay, geeze! I’m up!” 

He gently pushed Fink off him out of annoyance. He propped himself up on his arms and glared at Fink. He probably wasn’t very threatening on account of him having bangs in his eyes and generally being a disaster. He wasn’t quite so elegant in the early mornings.

Venomous whined, “You’re getting too old to do that.” He swept the hair out of his face and rubbed his side. Fink didn’t weigh much, but it still hurt.

“Are ya sure it ain’t ‘cus you're old?” she giggled.

“I’m not that old.” Venomous mumbled as he sat up.

“Psshh, yeah you are! I bet you went ta school with dinosaurs!”

“That’s not scientifically possible and you know it. Now stop making fun of me or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else I’ll EAT YOU!”

He suddenly lunged at the little rat girl and tickled her all over while making monster noises. Fink squealed and laughed as her father figure attacked.

“I can’t breath!” She squealed before wiggling her way out of Venomous’s constricting arms.

On the way out, Fink accidentally kicked Venomous quite hard in the gut.

“Oof!” Venomous clutched at his stomach as the wind was knocked out of him.

“Oops! Sorry Boss!”

“I’m good. Now get out of my room, I need to get ready.”

“Yessir!” She hugged him before running out of the room and closing the door.

Venomous sighed and rubbed his back.

“Geez, I’m getting old…”

He got up after a while, put on his expensive slippers, and entered the bathroom. Venomous had his own private bathroom attached to his room, and it was a cool white. Of course there were the obvious necessities like a toilet, shower, a sink, and no bathroom is complete without a totally necessary jacuzzi. This one wasn’t as cool as his roof jacuzzi or as any of his vacation homes’ 20 other jacuzzis. There wasn’t too much more going on here though.

He took a long, hot bath with all the fancy bath things. Stuff like epsom salt, flower petals, essential oils, and candles. You know, just rich people things™. His muscles were pretty sore after that awakening after all. And no, the author would not describe his body. If the reader wanted that, then they needed to go to horny jail. It was time for that wholesome shit; not the horny shit. 

When he was done bathing, he put on his bathrobe and dried his hair with a rather nice blow drier. He also decided he was getting a little scruffy and shaved. As he started putting on his makeup, Fink began knocking on the door. 

“What’s takin you so long!” She shouted.

“I told you, I’m getting ready!” Venomous yelled back

The knocking ceased for a bit and Venomous could hear sniffing underneath the door.

“Did you take a bath?!”

“Why would it matter if I did?”

“That don’t answer my question!”

“It wasn’t supposed to.”

“I’m gonna come in there and see for myself!”

Fink suddenly barged into the bathroom, reminding Venomous of why he bought a bathrobe in the first place. Something he learned a long time ago was that privacy was never an option with children around.

“Ha! You did take a bath!”

“Yup, you caught me. Now can I please finish getting ready alone?”

“Nope! I don’t trust you, and I want my presents!”

“What do you think I’m going to do?” Venomous turned back to the mirror to finish his half-done makeup job.

“I dunno, take another bath?”

Venomous chuckled a little.

“Oh no, I ruined my makeup! Looks like I have to start aaaaall over now!” Venomous teased.

“What?!” Her shock dissipated the second she picked up on the sarcasm. “You’re a big meany!”

Venomous simply laughed as he finished up his handy work.

“Fink, I’m a villain. What were you expecting? But seriously though, you need to leave. I have to get dressed.”

“Fine.” Fink reluctantly left the room again. “But Imma be right outside your door to make sure you don’t do anything else!”

“Ok.” Venomous shoved her out and closed the door behind her.

Now that Fink was outside, he could breath for a second. His room wasn’t much different than the rest of the house. He had a very nice white bed with a lot of pillows, a big closet full of exclusively name brand clothing, peach colored wooden nightstands, a massive TV he could watch from the bed, a chandelier, miscellaneous other furniture, and his personal favorite part was the wonderful view from the floor to ceiling windows.

Since he had already done his makeup, there was no point in trying to put on a turtleneck. Instead, he quickly put on a grey button up along with his usual black pants then threw his expensive black and red plaid pajamas in his laundry basket. Fink had suffered enough time waiting.

Venomous opened the door, “Alright, I’m done.”

“Yay!” Fink zipped off to the kitchen.

There was no point in trying to keep up with her when she was running somewhere. Instead, he took the time to look around in paranoia. With how feisty P.O.I.N.T. had been lately, they could be here watching him right now. He had to be prepared to protect Fink. He had a pretty extreme security system, but there was no stopping P.O.I.N.T. when they came after you. 

He made it to the dining room without incident. As the reader could probably expect, it was massive and nicely furnished with a giant chandelier and had a fake fireplace.

“Surprise! I made us cupcakes!”

“Oh, how sweet!” He said through gritted teeth.

Those were not cupcakes. Venomous didn’t know what they were, but cupcakes they were not.

“Here, I put extra frosting on this one just for you!” Fink shoved the “cupcake” in PV’s mouth.

“Mff!” It tasted like shit. “Iff owff-ffl.”

“I’m sorry what?”

“Mmmffff!”

“Imma just eat one myself I guess.”

Venomous spat the handcrafted death cake in the nearest trash can.

“NO.” He attempted to slap the tray out of Fink’s hand before she had one, but he was too late. Instead, he ended up covering himself in the new bioweapons Fink created.

“Phooey!” She didn’t even bother finding a trash can. “That was awful! Oh, Ha! You’re all covered in ‘em!”

Fink Pointed and laughed at Venomous. Seeing her so happy made him happy too. That was short lived though-

**_ERRRRRRR! ERRRRRRR! ERRRRRRR!_ **

-as an alarm suddenly went off and Venomous could smell smoke. The room was full of loud noises and red lights.

_ Shit, they’ve found me! _

“Fink, we’re-”

“OH YEAH, AND THE KITCHEN IS DEFINITELY NOT ON FIRE OR ANYTHING. IMMA JUST GO GET THE FIRE EXTINg- EXTinin... FIRE PUTTER-OUTER THINGY FOR NO REASON IN PARTICULAR! BYE!”

Fink suddenly zipped off back into the kitchen. Venomous wasn’t sure what to feel, so he decided to ignore his feelings and focus on checking all the windows and doors to see if anyone was trying to get in.

Dining room?

_ Nope… _

Living room?

_ Nope… _

His study?

_ No one here… _

The security room?

_ Nothing… _

He wasn’t completely convinced everything was okay, but he turned off the alarm anyway. He made his way back to the dining room to find a slightly scorched, but otherwise fine, Fink waiting for him.

“So-so there was...um-this HUGE bat in the kitchen,” Fink gestured the approximate size of the “bat” by throwing her arms out wide, “ and… uh-I hit ‘em in the face with the fire putter-outer thingy!” She punched her hand with her other fist, “But his face was like, made outa FIRE STEEL or summ’n ‘cuz he just blowed up the thingy instead! And then he, uh.. He breathed fire ALL OVER ME!” Fink waved her arms around, “But it was all okay because I chased ‘im off an now the food is all safe!” Fink gazed up at him expectantly with her hands on her hips and her chest proudly puffed out. Guilt was written all over her face. Literally. The ash and soot spelled the word “Guilt”.

“Great work Fink!” He gave her a small hug so as not to get covered in the ash as well as the cupcakes he was already covered in. “You’re the best minion an evil villain could ever ask for!”

Fink gasped and pumped a fist in victory; Venomous pretended he didn’t see that.

“Can I open my presents now?”

“Yes.”

He took his little minion by the hand and led her to the garage where he was keeping the weapons he bought from Boxman.

“Here you go! I had them specially made for you.” He ruffled the little girl’s hair.

Fink gasped with pure, childlike joy. She ran to the weapons laughing. As she discovered some of the features on them, her excitement grew and grew. Watching his little girl get so excited made him so happy. He didn’t always have the time to spend with her outside of work and neither of them knew her true birthday, so this was the best thing he could really give her. The whole thing was bitter sweet; she deserved so much better.

_ Eh, I don’t care anymore. _

That was his monthly vulnerability limit hit right there, until Fink suddenly ran up to him and gave him a big hug. Turns out he hadn’t quite hit that vulnerability limit yet, because he had room for one last hug with his favorite minion. Now they were both thoroughly covered in cupcakes and ash. The joy on Fink’s face was worth the difficult time he’d have getting her to take a bath later though.


	9. Another Very Creative and Original Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Villain's Night Out. No seriously, that's it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting these early in honor of getting OKKO to trend on Twitter. We did it guys.

_ Venomous had to be careful. _

No matter how much power a villain had, they could never stand up to P.O.I.N.T. They had been watching Venomous lately which would be bad for any other villain, but Professor Venomous wasn’t like other villains. Well he was, but that's besides the point. He thought that Billiam’s annual party might make him feel a little better, but he had a little business to attend to first.

“Boss, why do we gotta go ta Buttmore?”

“Because.”

“‘Cus why?”

“Because I said so.”

He honestly was so desperate for help, he was even allowing his reputation to tank a little further in order to save his sorry ass. Begging for help was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had exhausted just about everything else. He was also getting kinda annoyed with all the constant begging for his time and was morbidly curious to hear what Boxman had to say. He didn’t have much time to talk today, but it would probably be fine. They had arrived at Boxmore.

“This is dumb.”

“Fink, please.”

“I don’t wanna talk to stinky old Boxbutt!” Fink protested as Venomous pulled her out of the car.

“Well, neither do I, but he won’t leave me alone until I do.”

He rang the doorbell and waited. As Venomous expected, Boxman opened the door and let the two in after a painfully long wait.

“Professor Venomous! I thought you were gonna reschedule like you usually do! But you didn’t have to dress up on my account!” Boxman chuckled a little as he spoke.

Venomous did in fact, dress up today. But it wasn’t for Boxman. He would never dress up for  _ him _ . Venomous was already stressed enough and didn’t need someone assuming things about him. That made an ass out of you and me.

“Let’s make this quick, Boxman. I’m only here because P.O.I.N.T.’s been breathing down my neck lately.” Venomous hissed.

“Oh, they have?” Boxman questioned with a nervous smile.

“P.O.I.N.T. is the biggest group of superheroes around! Their weapons, their defense, their everything! It’s better than anything that we villains have to offer. Why do you think I’ve enlisted your help in the first place?” 

“No, really, I- I agree with you! I have to deal with P.O.I.N.T. all the time! I’m just so sick of them meddling in all my affairs- that’s why I called you here!”

The trio entered a lab of sorts full of supercomputers, blueprints, and wasn’t much different than the workshop he had been in a few weeks prior aside from one of the walls which instantly commanded Venomous’s attention and something on the floor.

“This new project I’m working on is going to turn everything on its head!”

“A glorb-processing plant?”

“Good eye, P.V.”

Obviously disgusted, Fink sneered, “P.V.?”

With this many glorbs Boxman’s idea suddenly looked much more appealing. All of his stress had moved to the back of his head as he toyed with the ideas that suddenly commandeered his thoughts.

“Every robot needs a glorb, and since glorbs are rather hard to come by, I have to make sure that each one I have is used to its utmost efficiency!”

“Hmm… And I take it this facility has something to do with your top-secret project?”

“Let me tell you all about it!”

Before Boxman could begin explaining, Fink piped up from the other end of the room.

“Status update, Boss!  _ Ahem,  _ Cosma says that we can bring a snack,”

“Okay.”

“Vormulax is bringing her karaoke machine,”

“Yes!”

“And Billiam says not to be late because we raise anchor at 9:00 PM sharp!

Venomous checked the time on his wrist watch; 8:30 PM. The drive was about 15 minutes from here.

“Yeesh, we need to get out of here.”

“B-But… Don’t you want to hear about my top-secret project.”

Boxman’s disappointment cut him like a knife. He wasn’t really sure why he cared; if the other villains find out he didn’t go to the party he was invited to because he was hanging out with Boxman, Venomous’s reputation as a super villain was as good as dead. 

“No can do, Box. We’re going to a villain’s party tonight on Billiam Milliam’s hover yacht.”

Venomous began to leave with Fink, believing the conversation was over. He forgot that this was Boxman, and Venomous just inadvertently admitted he wasn’t doing any work tonight.

“Can I come!”

Boxman abruptly jumped in front of Venomous and Fink. The force of his arrival caused some mild destruction and he somehow changed into a blue tux in the couple seconds it took Venomous to take four steps toward the door.

“No.”

The shorter man then proceeded to literally rip his tux off and somehow summon a sideways cap on his head revealing an outfit that looked like he was about to discuss  _ cool  _ and  _ hip _ things with his fellow kids.

“How about now?”

“No.”

Boxman unceremoniously ripped this new outfit, revealing a white tank top with black pants and a necklace reading “BM” on it. He wasn’t really sure where the hat went or where the necklace came from but at this point thinking about it was starting to hurt Venomous’s head.

“Stop that! You can’t go because you aren’t invited.”

“Not invited? Really? But I’m a villain!”

“You’re a box man, Boxman.”

“Ha!” Fink was as eager as always to join in when Venomous insulted someone.

“Touche… I’ll be your plus-one!”

“Fink’s already my plus-one.”

In response, Fink stuck her tongue out at Boxman. 

Boxman was practically begging at this point, “But she’s just a henchman!”

Fink suddenly bit Boxman’s finger, earning a yelp from the cyborg. Despite the obvious pain he was in he continued anyway.

“Look, Boxmore is more than capable of looking after precious widdle Fink tonight, oh yes! Just give me a chance to show you that I am more than just a box man!”

As Fink attempted to yell without detaching from Boxman, he started giving Venomous puppy dog eyes.

_ Damn, anything but that face… _

He checked his watch; 8:34 PM. He was becoming acutely aware that there was no other way out of this situation; Boxman was just dead set on getting into that party. It didn’t exactly help that Venomous was weak to puppy dog eyes either.

“I suppose.”

“Great!”

Boxman suddenly ran off full speed into another room with Fink. He came back within a second or two after yelling something mostly unintelligible to his robots.

“My robots are going to babysit. Shall we?”

Venomous rolled his eyes and gestured for Boxman to follow as he left. Boxman was practically exploding with excitement as he followed and eventually even passed Venomous. He also talked. A LOT. Venomous wasn’t really too focused on what the shorter man was saying since he was more worried about what the other villains were going to think about him and what they might even do to Boxman. He wasn’t sure why he cared, but for some reason he found himself pitying Boxman. He knew what the other villain’s thought, but Boxman seemed painfully unaware. 

At some point, Box had changed the radio from smooth Jazz to something that kind of sounded like R&B and was practically screeching the lyrics out. Venomous just wanted to get this done as fast and painlessly as humanly possible. Upon arrival at the docs, Venomous noticed that everyone else had already arrived. He was late by his standards. The pair of villains got out of the convertible and made their way to the hover yacht. The thing had Billiam Milliam’s obnoxious face on it. He was the epitome of narcissistic villain, the best of the best.

“Ooh, i’m so excited! I don’t ever get to go to any parties!”

“Just behave yourself please, Boxman.”

“Oh don’t worry I’ll be on my best behavior!”

_ Was that a wink? _

“Just stay behind me and let me do the talking.”

Venomous made sure he boarded first in a pitiful attempt to avoid any conflict. He assumed he’d be able to talk his way out of any possible consequences. 

The eternally gaudy Billiam Milliam greeted him, “Ah, Professor Venomous! It’s been so-” 

“Ooh, lovely boat, Billy-Willy!”-until Boxman shoved his way into the conversation. He pushed his way further onto the boat while yelling and cheering. Venomous realized he wasn’t getting out of this unscathed and sighed in preparation for the incoming lecture.

“You brought Boxman as your plus-one? You know he’s just a joke villain. He builds little toy robots.”

“He forced himself along, but surely no one will notice him?

**Everyone noticed.** Boxman was helping himself to all the food, and they hadn’t even left yet. At least he seemed to be enjoying himself though.

“Egad!” 

Billiam ran off in Boxman’s direction and Venomous settled into his usual place during parties: the nearest wall. After a few short minutes, the hover yacht set sail and Billiam called the attention of all the other villains. Venomous also caught sight of Boxman again, ...still eating all the food...

**_Dink dink!_ **

Surrounded by his grotesque muscle bound and underdressed silver bodyguards, Billiam began his welcome speech, “Good evening, my villains and villainesses! You’re in for the most outrageous, sinful treat of a time tonight. To start things off,” Billiam clapped his hands, revealing slightly less weird thin, bobble headed silver minions carrying shirts. “I will hand out some commemorative t-shirts!”

A minion came up to Venomous with a shirt and suddenly plopped it in his hands. The shirt had Billiam’s nightmare inducing face on it. Venomous already hadn’t known peaceful sleep since his hero days, but now he definitely never would again. Boxman was attempting to put one of the T-shirts on after drinking all the punch, so Venomous began heading in his direction in order to keep Boxman from causing too much trouble. Granted, there really wasn’t a point in trying because this was Boxman. 

A song started playing. Suddenly, Boxman declared, “Ooh! That’s my hot purple jam!” He then proceeded to run off and Venomous grumbled to himself.

_ What does that even mean? _

Venomous followed Boxman, but not too closely, to make sure he didn’t do something too bad.

**_Vrrt vrrt._ **

He had received a text from Fink. There was an image of Shannon, Darrel and a yellow animal-like robot he believed was named Mikayla.

~New exhibit at the goon museum!

Venomous chuckled to himself, “Looks like she’s having fun.”

He lowered his phone to reveal a dancing Boxman.

_...and here I am babysitting him… _

He sighed as Boxman ran off in some other direction to wreak more havoc.


	10. Yes, I did Just Split Another Episode Into Two Chapters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not joking, it's still just Villain's Night Out.

_ Venomous often enjoyed watching people and wreaking havoc _ . 

This time was different though. At the moment, Boxman was unknowingly making not only himself look worse, but he was taking Venomous down with him. They looked down on him in disgust as he tried showing off one of his recent losses to the plaza heroes. Venomous shouldn’t have brought him along, because now he was dancing by himself again after Vormulax and Cosma migrated to another part of the yacht in an attempt to escape. If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to hear about it.

Billiam wailed, “Ohh! He’s ruining everything!”

Too late.

“I have to stop this.” Venomous declared in an attempt to salvage his deteriorating reputation. He removed his suit coat and danced his way to Boxman.

“Boxman. Boxman!”

The cyborg couldn’t hear over his cheering and the music.

“BOXMAN!”

He froze as the music calmed down.

“This is completely inane.”

Venomous walked back to the other villains. He then began putting his coat back on and grabbed himself a drink.

“There, I dealt with it.”

“ _ Ahem.  _ I’d like to dedicate this song to my most evil best friend, and I think you know him-”

_ Shit. _

Venomous made himself as small as possible and tried to pretend like he wasn’t associated with Boxman.

“-Professor Venomous. Oh yeah.”

Venomous took a long, slow sip of his drink as the other villains looked at him with confusion and disgust. Boxman somehow managed to stretch his arm enough to abruptly grab Venomous from a good two or three feet away and hold him close. It’s possible he might have walked up, but Venomous was cringing too hard from second hand embarrassment to care. With Venomous in his arms, he began singing. poorly. 

“When we walk down the street, 

other villains wish that they could meet us,

but they can’t. No they can’t.”

Venomous was suddenly sent flying and fell to the floorboards face down, a cringing, shaking mess. Boxman’s singing became more akin to a cat in a blender than a person’s voice.

“ **‘CAUS WE’RE TWO OF HEARTS! TWO OF HEARTS! WE’RE TWO OF HEARTS. I DON’T KNOW IF I MENTIONED THIS, BUT WE ARE TWO OF HEARTS!”**

Boxman suddenly stopped his glass shattering screeching and everyone sighed. Venomous wasn’t a religious man, but he suddenly found himself praising Cob’s grace in his head. He stayed on the ground for a few seconds more before picking himself back up as Billiam began yet another speech.

“ _ Ahem.  _ Dearest guests, why don’t we move on to the best part of our evil party? I’ve prepared the rooftop for our annual explode-off! Let us boast our terrible powers in a most excessive manner!”

Venomous made his way through the crowd to Boxman’s side, still somewhat disoriented by Boxman’s trorture weapon called a singing voice. The shorter villain’s laughter seemed to suggest he was oblivious to everyone's suffering though. Either that or he genuinely enjoyed it.

“Ah! You’re just in time for the big, big show!”

On cue, Billiam blew up an island with missiles shaped like his face, or as Venomous liked to call them,  _ Bill Mill-siles. _ This resulted in applause from the rest of the villains.

“Ha, watch this.” Cosma challenged.

She used FRIGGIN’ MIND BEAM POWERS to throw some  _ Bill Mill-siles _ at the moon, which should have totally annihilated the tides forever, leading to the destruction of the world as they all knew it, but this is a shitty fanfiction that’s including straight up episodes from a kids show as chapters with some changes here and there. Also the sun was a living entity that straight up talked and flew away. That is to say, by the power of cartoon logic everything’s fine and the author should probably get a life instead of over- analyzing kids shows all day.

Billiam asked, “All right, who’s next?”

Big Bull Demon, a big blue demon, stepped forward.

“Oh, Big Bull Demon? Come on up.”

The demon was barely able to move before being suddenly shoved aside by an impatient Boxman as he ran up and forced his way forward.

“No! No! No! Me! Me! Mine! It’s my turn! I got a real good one!” Boxman input the coordinates of his target as he spoke using the computer in one minion’s hands. 

The  _ Bill Mill-siles _ launched as Boxman puffed out his chest. The uneasy crowd followed them with their eyes as the  _ Bill Mill-siles  _ zoomed towards their unknown target.They were waiting to discover what horrible fate those ugly golden monsters were going to impart on them. And then- nothing.

“Hmm, that, uh… wasn’t so bad, huh?” Billiam was sweating liquid gold (he was too rich to sweat like a peasant) when a minion nervously handed over the computer.

“Oh, whatever is the matter, my boy.” The target came as a huge shock. Stifling panic, Billiam began to speak again, “Uh, my fellow villains, I regret to inform you all that the coordinates Boxman entered were for… P.O.I.N.T… P.O.I.N.T. H.Q…”

Time froze. It was only a second, but it felt like hours. 

Panic. Suddenly everyone was screaming. Everyone was running. He couldn’t believe what he just heard, or what just happened or what was going on now. What was happening? Why couldn’t he move?

“This one’s for you, Professor Venomous!” 

And yet Boxman seemed confident and unwavering in the face of his idiotic and deadly mistake. He stood at the very front of the yacht and yelled defiantly as the  _ Bill Mill-siles _ hit the massive hand pointing to the heavens that served as the headquarters. The crowd gasped as the smoke dissipated, revealing a simple smudge. A pterodactyl landed above the smudge, nothing. The crowd sighed in relief.

“AUTOMATED DEFENSES ACTIVATED” Suddenly, the building’s fingers unfurled and shot lasers at the yacht. 

It was a direct hit. Venomous didn’t know where he was or what exactly happened. He heard screaming and running and didn't know what to do or where to go or how to move his body. Could he move his body? Then Venomous suddenly realized his top half was stuck in the floor. As he tried to gather his bearings, Billiam was tasked with calming the crowd and getting everyone off the yacht safely. Venomous couldn’t hear much beyond a few muffled instructions. Something about escape pods, life vests, and the pods... swimming?

Venomous managed to dig himself out of the hole in the floor and brush himself off. His poor suit was unsalvageable, and his hair wasn’t any better. After he made a cursory glance at his injuries, he picked pieces of rubble out of his ruined hair and looked around. Just about everyone else was gone and there was only one “escape pod” left. By escape pod, Billiam apparently meant his weird bodyguards. His next goal was to find Boxman. Although he was the entire reason they were in this mess in the first place, he still felt somewhat responsible for the man. Venomous found Boxman looking out as Billiam shouted his disapproval of him from the backs of a group of bodyguards. As Venomous made his way to Boxman, a bodyguard popped out of the water and panced the poor man. It was a shameful display.

“Come on! There’s still one more escape pod. Let’s escape together.”

“No.”

“Eh?”

“I knew it all along, you know? I knew all the villains hated me.”

Venomous suddenly felt a strange group of feelings he hadn’t felt in a long time. Sympathy? Guilt? Or maybe something else; he had long forgotten their names and the way they felt. He was just like those villains just at one point, and if he wasn’t careful he could be just like Boxman.

“The real reason why I came along is because I wanted to show them that I don’t care what they think of me!”

Boxman turned to face Venomous. There was no sadness in his eyes, just pure, unadulterated malice. The twisted look on Boxman’s face shocked Venomous, but there was something disturbingly handsome about it. Boxman swiftly pulled out a mysterious remote, and Venomous suddenly realized the other villain could end his life right now if he wanted to.

“They’re never gonna stop me from doing what I want, whether it’s destroying the plaza or destroying this accursed yacht!”

With the push of a button, Boxman opened up a black hole in the sky above them and began laughing maniacally. Venomous was certain he was doomed. He pushed this handsome and potentially deadly super villain too far, and now he was going to die on this gaudy, Cob forsaken yacht. A big box fell from the hole in the sky as Box continued to laugh. Before Venomous could think of a way to get himself out of this situation, it crashed down into the yacht full force. Both Venomous and Boxman were sent flying into the air, but Boxman just kept on laughing. He pressed another button, calling his desk that he apparently rigged to fly in order to catch the two men. Venomous clutched Box for his life as the desk twisted and turned through the night sky. Meanwhile, that powerful evil laugh of Boxman’s slowly started to peter out.

Eventually, the desk stabilized and everything was quiet. Venomous released Box and turned away. This man was an evil genius and he knew exactly what he was doing. He played everyone. Venomous was just like all the other villains, and Box could have killed him if he wanted to. And yet he didn’t; he even attacked P.O.I.N.T. in Venomous’s name. No other villain had the guts to try that, but this man did it anyway. Boxman could probably do far more than any other villain; he could be revered if he wanted to. And yet he didn’t because it wasn’t interesting to him, so now everyone saw Box as a joke. But he wasn’t a joke, he just did what he wanted. And if that made him a punchline, Venomous didn’t want to know serious villainy anymore. 

Venomous glanced at Box just in time for the latter to look away. It wasn’t as bright out with the moon in pieces, but he could have sworn Box’s face was turning pink.

“I guess I got carried away back there-”

Venomous spoke before his brain could catch up with him,“I’m Impressed.”

“Huh?”

“I love your dedication to crushing those plaza heroes.”

“But what are you-”

Venomous stood up and turned to Boxman, he could see his shadow engulf Box as Venomous blocked the dim light of the broken moon.

“Your secret project? You’re going to give me every last detail of it.”

“Oh, Okay!”

“And that’s not all, I have something to give you.”

He pulled out a box and opened it, revealing a chip. Boxman’s eyes sparkled.

“Ooh, hello… What’s that?”

“This bio-chip will turn your little science project into the most fearsome weapon alive! Now, tell me everything.”

Boxman laughed, “Sure thing!” His laughter turned more maniacal before he continued talking. “Let’s go pick up Fink!”

Through Box’s continued laughing, the desk suddenly entered some turbulence causing Box to fall on Venomous’s chest.

“Maybe we should sit down first.”

“Uh, yeah.” Boxman chuckled a little.

They sat down together, somewhat closer now, and Venomous handed Box the box for the bio-chip and the shorter villain put it away in his back pocket.

“So…” Venomous verbally prodded.

“Oh! Ok, so you know how the robots I sell tend to be more limited right?

“Mhm.”

“Well I have to make ‘em more specialized and light on materials to save time and cost when I mass produce them! So I want to make a robot with no limits; one for my own personal use!” Boxman waved his arms around with wild abandonment and laughed maniacally as he detailed his top-secret project.“There’s gonna be HUGE, absolutely MASSIVE explosions! Oh! oh! Oh! And he’s gonna be able to fly and- and… I don’t know what else yet… Oh and they’ll never expect a thing, ‘cause he’ll look just like any other baby! It’s perfect!”

“Excuse me? A baby?”

“Yep!”

“And you need me for…?

“Mostly just funding, you are my best client after all!” The shorter man chuckled nervously, “That and I also… kinda... don’t have anyone else to turn to...”

Box fidgeted with his hands; it was honestly kind of cute. And sad. PV opened his mouth to speak.

“Oh would you look at that! We’re back!”

The desk landed and they began walking inside once PV began to replace his torn coat. “So, how’s Saterdays here at 2 and same time Sunday at my place sound?”

Box’s brain seemed to be attempting to access dial up internet for a moment before he realized they never discussed a date to meet.

“Oh! Uh, yeah of course! That’s perfect!”

The pair had made it to the play room where the robots were watching Fink at, so Box decided to make their appearance as known.

“Weeee’re Baaa-aack! Gah!” 

Box froze. Upon entering the room, PV figured out why. The corner was a mess, the robots were barely in one piece, there was a hole in the ceiling, and Fink was exhausted.

“Boss!” Speak of the devil, the little rat child ran up and hugged PV tightly.

“You’re all burnt up too, I take it you had fun?”

“No I didn’t! The robots are the worst! They didn’t feed me, and they don’t know how to play good at all, and- and- and… They led me in danger! I almost bit the dust!” Fink pulled on her dress to show off the stains and tears on it and began to wobble as she continued. “ You see this?! You see this, Boss?! Look at me! Just look at me! I… I’m…”

The little rat let out one last adorable little yawn before falling asleep sitting up on the ground. She was so tired, she barely stirred when PV gently took her in his arms.

“Oh boy.”

“Oh Venomous, I’m so, so, sorry!”

“What for? Usually it’s her babysitters that end up this tuckered out. Never seen it happen the other way around. That must’ve been quite a feat!” He laughed, “You guys should babysit her all the time.”

This statement seemed to wake Fink up, “Huh?”

“Anyway, I better get this one home. See ya, Boxman.”

Fink quietly protested, “No… No, no, no, no, no…”

Boxman nervously waved goodbye.

“Yeeeees.~”

He buckled the small rat into her car seat as her protests silently faded into slumber. They were going home, and it was well past Fink’s bed time.


	11. Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's their first weekend working together, and now the Voxman you all came for can Finally begin.

“Oh PV you came!”

It had taken a while for the smaller villain to open the door, as per usual. He had his arms wide open as if he was going to hug PV. Unfortunately, Fink didn’t like it when others touched her boss. She jumped at Box unexpectedly, but PV managed to catch her just in time. She continued to try and struggle out of his arms for a bit, resulting in her being sideways at some point.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I brought Fink along. She’s destroyed all the robots from your last shipment and I’ve exhausted all my other options.”

“Oh no worries at all, I can make arrangements!” Box suddenly turned and screamed into the void behind him, “DARREL! SHANNON!” The rest of his words were mostly unintelligible.

The pair of bots yelled back a cheerful “Yes daddy!” and promptly wrestled the protesting rat child out of PV’s arms.

“I don’t wanna go! Boss! Don’t let ‘em take me!”

PV let her go without even trying to stop the bots.

“Oops.” 

“NOOOOOooooo….” 

The robots ran off with a struggling and screaming Fink towards the play room. Meanwhile, they just seemed happy to have a playmate.

“Wait.. PV I thought you said we were meeting at 2..?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not even one yet.”

“And?”

Boxman looked at him for a while before giving up on questioning him further.

“Welp! That just gives us more time to work together!”

Boxman began leading PV to a workshop excitedly. There was something kind of cute about how excited he was. Box obviously didn’t get out much, but PV couldn’t really blame him considering the way everyone else saw him. Perhaps one day he’d have to take him out somewhere nice., but not in a gay way. No, in a perfectly normal friend way that didn’t include weird and confusing feelings for another dude and his glorious, sweaty abs.

“I already have so many ideas! I hope you don’t mind, but i came up with a whole lot of ‘em without you after the party.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

“Great!”

Box suddenly flung the doors to his workshop wide open. The wind caused various blueprints to go flying all around the room as Box hastily ran to the very depressed loveseat in the corner. He patted the cushion that was the least stained beyond recognition.

“Make yourself feel at home!”

“Uh, thank you...”

PV was hesitant to sit on it, but he wasn’t about to tell Box he was too rich for his ass to touch his disgusting peasant seating. He wouldn’t say exactly that, but he didn’t want Box to think that’s what PV meant. So, he sat down without complaint. Box seemed pleased by this course of action and started gathering some markers, some cleaning supplies, and a white board. He juggled the objects with some difficulty, but eventually managed to get it all over to the couch. Box clapped.

“Okay! So, I’ll start by writing some of my ideas… up… mff here…”

Box was struggling with his short height to write on the top of the board as he stood on tip-toes.

“Here, let me get that for you.”

Box reluctantly handed the purple marker he was trying to use over to PV.

“What were you trying to write?”

“I was just trynna write the word ideas!”

“...just trying to write-”

“NO!”

Box halfheartedly hit PV’s sides and the taller man chuckled a bit. He knew what Box meant, but messing with people was funny and Box was an easy target.

“There. I fixed it, you can stop attacking me now.”

Box suddenly realized what he was doing was probably weird, “Oh geez, I-I’m sorry PV-”

“Don’t apologize, I did it on purpose.”

“Oh… Hey!”

“Here’s your marker back, you should be able to write the rest on your own.”

Box took the marker back rather aggressively and started writing some ideas down. Venomous sat back down on the couch and watched the other man write away on the board

“Okay, so I wanna add buzz saws and the lasers-”

“And the explosions and the guns.”

“Yep!” Box continued writing more things, “I also came up with a few ideas for how he could fly and stuff. I had this one idea where he could fly using a high chair, or maybe a walker or something similar. I think it’d be pretty cool!”

“Yeah, that could work.” PV nodded his head in agreement.

“Yeah, it could come out of his body!”

“Excuse me what?”

“Oh, and there would be rockets under it to make it fly!”

“Oh..”

“OH MY COB IT’S BRILLIANT!”

Box hastily scribbled down his idea in chicken scratch.

“Ya know what would also be cool-”

“Box, I can’t read your handwr-”

“ELECTRIC BAR- sorry what?”

“Your handwriting, I can’t read it.”

The shorter villain looked at PV, then looked at his handwriting. A large portion of the board was taken up by excited, unreadable scribbles. It was a mess.

“Whoops! I’ve never really had to worry about someone else reading it before, eheh!”

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously as Venomous got up to take the marker from him.

“How about this, you tell me your ideas, and I’ll write them down.”

“Okay!”

Their hands brushed as Box handed off the purple marker, warming PV’s face a little. He erased some of the erratic chicken scratch and replaced it with his more elegant handwriting. Honestly though, it really wasn’t much better.

“All right, what’s next?”

“Punching gloves”

“Okay.”

“Hmmm. How about fire balls!”

“That could be interesting… What about missiles?”

“Yeah! They could be shaped like baby bottles!”

“Where are you going to get missiles shaped like bottles?”

Boxman just kind of shrugged and continued as if the question was never asked.

“Oh! I got another idea! I bet those pesky heroes would never expect extra modes!”

“Like?” PV waited expectantly in front of the board.

“When he gets mad he could turn his face into a giant gun! Ooh! And maybe he could make himself bigger or something when he needs to!”

“Ok. Wouldn’t that be a bit dangerous for you though?”

“What do you mean?”

“Babies and young children are prone to temper tantrums.”

“Oh that would be a good name for it!”

“Boxman!”

“What?!”

“You’re not listening. If you’re not careful, you could really get yourself hurt.”

PV wasn’t usually the type of person to warn people about the dangers behind their decisions. In fact, he usually actively encouraged it. But Venomous was involved here too, definitely wasn’t because he was very bi and in denial of his feelings and hated the possibility of Box getting hurt.

“Ah, geez PV. I’ve gotten myself out of worse scraps before! Hell, I’m around Darrel all the time and he’s basically just a toddler with guns! I don’t think strapping rockets to an infant is gonna be too much worse.”

“It kind of is actually.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?!”

“I don’t know, put in some kind of failsafe maybe?!”

“Pfft! That’s why I make all my robots blindly obedient”

Venomous turned to face Boxman on his sad, sad little broken couch.

“You can’t make a baby obedient!”

“Pv, are you okay?”

PV must’ve been wincing, due to migraines flaring up.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, now can you please shut up.”

“Ok…” Boxman swallowed.

There was a short pause and PV sighed. He felt kind of bad for snapping at Boxman. 

“I’m sorry for yelling. I didn’t really get much sleep last night, and now I have to deal with migraines-”

“I-It’s okay! How about we just sit down for a bit?”

Box patted at the cushion next to him. PV sat down and put his head in his hands.

“Is there anything you need me to get you?”

“Water. Please.” Venomous didn’t bother looking up because his vision would just be a mess if he did.

“Ok.” Box patted the taller man on the back before he got up and left the room.

PV was alone and the room was quiet. He suddenly found himself missing Boxman’s excited rambling, but the sounds of the factory were much more audible now. The distant grinding of gears, chugging, whistles, dings, and various other factory noises were strangely soothing. At some point, he must have dozed off because he never noticed the usually loud Box entering with water until he opened his mouth.

“Heya PV, I brought you that water you wanted.” The shorter man nervously laughed as he sat down next to Venomous and handed over the water.

“Thanks.”

PV took the water and swallowed his painkillers.

“I brought some pillows for you too!”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Box put the pillows behind PV as he spoke, “It’s fine, I just wanna make sure you’re comfortable!”

“I can take care of myself, you know.”

“Depriving yourself of sleep to the point you get sick doesn’t sound like taking care of yourself to me!”

“...touche…”

“How about this, I put a dumb failsafe in the baby and you let me make sure you’re doin okay?”

“Fine…”

“Good! I’m glad we came to an agreement!”

Box patted PV on the back a little hard, but Venomous didn’t really mind. He chuckled to himself a little.


	12. Gay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saturday continues and Venomous has a gay panic.

_ The break lasted about an hour and a half. _

They talked about life for a bit before realizing they should probably get back to work. PV was feeling significantly better now too and was adamant that he was fine.

“Ok.” Box clapped, “Whoo!”

“What was that for exactly?”

“I am preparing myself mentally!”

PV stretched out a little as he spoke, “I guess that’s one way to do it.”

PV grabbed the purple marker and Box grabbed a second whiteboard. Apparently Boxman had a few of those hidden somewhere, he wasn’t entirely sure where though. Box grabbed a green marker and suddenly started writing in big bold letters.

“Alright, so I got this really cool idea while we were taking a break: Laser. Vision.” Box underlined the words as he finished.

“Yes. What if it also had some sort of super scream or something? That might leave them disoriented and therefore easier to take out.”

“Write that down!”

“Ok.”

PV did as he was told.

“Wait actually, maybe it’d be better if he had some sorta smoke screen! Those asinine heroes won’t know what hit ‘em!” 

Boxman laughed maniacally as he wrote out his idea.

“Why not both?”

Box gasped.

“That’s great!” Box scribbled up something completely illegible before continuing, “And then the gas could come out of his butt!” He chuckled at his own potty humor.

“What?” The end of the word got lost in a small chuckle.

“Yeah and-and it could be toxic or-or something! Like- like an evil fart!” Box immediately broke into thunderous laughter over his own dumb joke. There wasn’t really anything funny about it, but PV decided to humor him with a sympathy laugh anyway. At least that’s what he told himself anyway.

“Cob, Boxman that’s so dumb. It’s perfect.”

“Oh you know what else would be great?”

“What?”

“Stone vision.” 

Something about PV’s expression must have told Box he needed to explain what he meant, because he dropped his marker so he could give a visual demonstration with his hands. 

“Basically, he’ll look at one of those pesky heroes, and pew!” He made a motion mimicking eye beams with his hands, “They’ll be turned to stone!”

“Very uh, creative idea. I have some, uh, concerns though. For one how would that even work?”

“I don’t know, but I thought maybe you could do some weird chemical thing or something.” He waved his fingers around as if chemicals were some distant form of magic.

“You do realize I’m not a wizard, right?”

“You’re not?”

Venomous’s brain had to take a moment to catch up before speaking, “While there are definitely ways to immobilize people with chemicals, you might be better off with an ice beam or maybe just nothing-.”

“Oooh! That sounds pretty interesting!”

“Okay, fine.”

PV went to write it down, but his marker was clearly starting to die. The tip had also become worn and was pushed in a considerable amount more then when the pair of villains started.

“Damn, that’s a shame.” Venomous mumbled.

“What?”

“Marker’s dead”

“Oh, here! You can just use this one!” 

Box handed the other villain a red marker and tossed the purple one to the other side of the room with a little grunt. 

**_Boom!_ **

For some reason, the marker created a small explosion in the corner.

“Did- did that marker explode?”

“Yep!”

PV had an incredulous look on his face.

“Regular markers are boring,” Boxman proudly declared.

“Was I holding a bomb this whole time?”

“Yep, pretty much.”

PV made yet another weird face.

“What? Life’s no fun when there ain’t a risk of a bomb going off in your face!”

PV’s voice went up an octave or two, “I think we’ve come up with enough ideas, I have a sinking feeling your next idea will involve exploding tentacles or something equally as crazy.” 

He cautiously put the red marker down and slowly backed away from the boards.

“PV YOU’RE A GENIUS!” He hastily scribbled that idea down too.

“Box, I was joking…”   
“Alright!” He slammed the marker down on the board, prompting PV to flinch. “Now let’s build him!”

“Wait,” PV put himself in front of Box to stop him from rushing ahead, “we need a plan first. A few half-baked ideas aren’t enou-”

Box abruptly picked PV up with ease and put him down to the side.

“Oh I know that, silly! I’m getting paper!”

“Oh…”

PV didn’t really know what to say. He knew Box was strong, but this man literally just picked him up and moved him over like it was nothing. Box held him in his big muscular- and he had work to do, no time for weird and definitely not super gay thoughts about your co-worker! PV walked up to the table Box was currently working at as the shorter man was drawing up some ideas. He was a shockingly good artist and had apparently already drawn up a few ideas. PV picked one up with a baby that reminded him an awful lot of Boxman.

“This is really good, Box.”

“T-thank you, but it’s not really that good. His head is too big, and so is his nose, and his outfit is awful. I bet you could do way better!” Box chuckled nervously.

“Not really, Fink won’t let me draw anymore after what happened last time.”

“Ooh, juicy! Give me all the details!”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Pleeeeeeeeaase!” Box gave PV puppy dog eyes.

PV had to look away. If he stared into those eyes for too long, he was doomed. 

“I really,  _ really,  _ don’t want to talk about it...”

“Aww, fine. I can’t make you talk about it I guess…”

“Thank you.”

“UNLESS I MAKE A TRUTH BEAM!”

“Box, you can’t do that.”

“Oh yeah?! Well, you’re probably right. But I’m gonna try it anyway!”

PV chuckled under his breath.

“I really like that about you.”

“O-oh? Like what?”

Venomous replied smoothly, “I like that you don’t care whether you can or should do something, you just kind of do it.”

“O-oh, well thank you!” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “I… I like your purple.”

“Thanks…”

“...”

“...”

“So anyway, I think I have a pretty good idea of what I want him to look like now!”

“Oh cool.” PV replied hastily.

Box ran off somewhat sluggishly to go dig out the materials necessary to work on the blueprints for the baby. He didn't really mean to say that outloud, but he did and now Box was uncharacteristically quiet. 

_ Shit, I made him uncomfortable. _

He mentally scolded himself. He probably made Box think he was into him. PV knew he looked kind of gay, but he didn’t mean “I like that about you” in a gay way. Sure he liked men too and Boxman was exactly his type, but he didn’t like him that way. Hell, he didn’t even know if Boxman liked men, he probably just wanted a friend and now he might not want anything to do with Venomous again. 

_ Oh Cob, what if he hates me? _

Box hadn’t returned yet, and it had been a few minutes. Usually, he would have returned by now. That’s it, Box must have run away or something! PV messed everything up so bad with his gay- 

**_Thud!_ **

He looked behind him in the direction Boxman went. He was laying face down on the floor covered in blueprints.

_ OH COB. I’M SO GAY IT LITERALLY KILLED THE MAN. _

“Boxman!”

Venomous ran over to Box. He kneeled down and checked the shorter man’s pulse. He sighed in relief.

_ He’s not dead. _

With his weak nerd arms, he tried to flip Box over with minimal success. Thankfully, Box seemed to be just conscious enough to help out a little. Box had a very distant look on his face.

“Box are you okay?”

Box put his human hand up to PV’s face.

“You’re really pretty…”

_ Dammit, he’s so lethargic he caught my gay. _

“Box, what happened?”

Box’s dreamy smile disappeared.

“...I don’t think I’ve eaten since breakfast…”

“Alright, hang on.”

PV left Boxman’s side to get the dinner he packed. He kept it in a fairly plain looking blue lunch box. He couldn’t really cook for himself, so he packed the left over expensive take out from last night along with a slice of cake. He returned to Box’s side

“I hope you like Chinese food and red velvet.”

“...What?” Box sat up a little and PV helped him the rest of the way. “Cake for dinner? PV you’re funny…” Box weakly laughed.

“Just open your mouth.”

“What? PV I can feed- mmph!”

PV shoved a fork full of red velvet cake in Box’s mouth before he could finish protesting.

“PV?! W-what are you- hmmphmphhh!”

The taller villain unceremoniously shoved some rice in Box’s mouth.

“I’m feeding you. Now stop talking, before you choke.”

PV could swear Box was turning into the cake with how red his face was; it was adorable. When the fork came Box’s way, he opened his mouth and kept quiet. PV only had the one fork, so they had to share. He didn’t usually like sharing utensils, but PV felt like he owed Box for earlier. Box eventually started to feel better, resulting in him shoveling the remaining food in his mouth with his bare hands before PV could bring the fork back around.

“You ate all my cake…” PV looked down at his empty containers forlornly.

“I’wmakefouaewfanewone.”

“Please, don’t talk when you’re chewing. It’s gross and I can’t understand you” PV shielded his face from the pieces of dislodged food being shot at him.

Box swallowed before repeating, “I’ll make you a new one!”

He got up from his seat on the ground and started running for the door, PV had to make a mad dash to keep Box out of trouble.

“Woah, Box! You’re going to set yourself on fire.”

“No I’m not!”

He set himself on fire and PV laughed.


	13. Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Sunday, and it's a disaster. That is all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since schooling and terrible internet is seriously messing with my chapter writing flow, I'll be posting the pre-written chapters a little slower in the future. Normally, I'd be able to get at least one done per day, but my current rate is now about one to three a week. Thank Spectrum for that, their internet sucks ass and we have nothing better out here.

_ Sunday. _

He had a lot of fun with Boxman yesterday. They agreed to meet at PV’s on Sundays. Today was Sunday. Did the author mention today was Sunday? Because today was Sunday. Sunday.

**_Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_ **

“Boss, hurry up! Why do you even care? It ain’t like he’s import’nt at all!”

PV had overslept. Again. He woke up at around 12, even though his alarm clock was set for 4:30 AM. This was probably because of his tendency to refuse himself a healthy amount of sleep just about every night. Sleep was for the weak and he had work to do. He took a quick shower and took his clothes with him to avoid any possible uncomfortable events as well as to save time. He dried his hair a while ago and was now working on his makeup. He considered shaving first, but he was never really capable of growing much more than a little stubble so he thought it would probably be fine.

It was now about 1:03 PM and Fink had to use the bathroom. Usually, if PV slept through his alarm, Fink would wake him up for food. This time, however, Fink also overslept by about 45 minutes longer than PV. Her rat child bladder always begged her to use the bathroom first thing in the morning. PV probably should have invested in fixing the other bathroom because now she was banging on his private bathroom door and screaming at him.

“I WILL LITERALLY TINKLE ON YOUR BED!”

“You do that, and I’m taking your videos game away!”

There was no more knocking or yelling, just silence. He finished his makeup and gave himself finger guns and a suave smile in the mirror. He then proceeded to nervously look around to make sure no one else saw that. As he left the bathroom, Fink sprinted in and slammed the door.

**_BANG!_ **

PV returned to his room with his expensive pajamas and put them in his laundry basket and he replaced his equally expensive slippers with his most expensive item of all, his boots. One last thing PV needed for the day was his rich people's cologne TM . It was imperative that everything he owned was hella expensive. He kept it in the top drawer of his nightstand, and he dabbed a bit of it on himself. Ok, technically it was perfume but the commercials made it sound like men would flock to you if you use it. PV was a very simple man and he wanted people to like him. He returned it to the first drawer, making extra sure not to disturb the second drawer. We don’t talk about the second drawer.

1:21 PM. He had about 30 minutes to eat his breakfast. He dug around in the kitchen for a bit before settling on microwavable pizza bagels. Bagels were a breakfast item right? Yes, and you could also eat cold pizza for breakfast too. This was indeed the perfect breakfast. Like the dignified savage, he opted to eat them frozen, but he did it gracefully. He didn’t feel like waiting for the microwave… He should have waited for the microwave.

“Hey Boss, what’s for breakfast?”

PV sighed and looked down at his visibly icy pizza bagels that now had a faint, bite-shaped dent in one. 

“Pizza bagels.”

“Ew! Imma just get me some Frosted Snakes!”

As the bagels spun around for five years, Venomous ultimately decided to help Fink get her own breakfast. The chocolate milk carton was proving too heavy for her baby rat arms, so she needed adult assistance asap before the floor became a brown sea. After pouring the milk, the heart attack in a bowl was finally complete and he placed it in front of Fink’s seat. She liked feeling like a big girl, so he didn’t use a high chair. Instead, he just put a cushion down for her and let her eat like that.

“Here you are!”

“Thanks Boss!”

He patted her on the head and messed up her hair.

“Your welcome.”

He returned to his pizza bagels of eternal cooking. They were unsurprisingly still cooking. PV sighed.

“Damn, I’m going hungry today huh?”

“Boss, I thought we weren’t supposed to use those words!” Fink scolded him from the other room.

“I’m an adult, so I can do whatever I want.” He called back.

PV honestly didn’t think she would hear him. 1:54 PM. His bagels  _ finally  _ finished cooking. Fink had already finished her “breakfast” a while ago and was now playing her videos game. At least he had his bagels though!

**_Vrrt vrrt._ **

PV sighed.

_ He’s here, isn’t he… _

Nope.

~I’m on my way!

PV checked his watch again: 1:58 PM. They were supposed to meet in two minutes. He sighed.

_ At least I can eat my bagels… _

And so, he ate his bagels and nothing else really happened for a solid 20 minutes. Well, nothing except that he got some sauce on his shirt and had to dash to his room to change it. Unfortunately, he didn’t have many options left since he had to do the laundry. His best option was a white dress shirt that was a bit too tight in the chest area for him to button up all the way. It was a good sign that he was recovering from the years he spent locked away, but it wasn’t so good for his meeting. Hopefully this would be fine. It was well past 2 at this point and Box could be here any second now. 

…He was late…

PV decided he would start the laundry while he waited for Boxman to arrive.

“HE’S HERE!”

“Hold on!” He managed to get his laundry started and quickly made his way to the front door.

On his way to the entryway, he ran into Fink. She stopped and stared.

“Boss, I know I said he wasn’t very important an’ all, but are you sure you wanna look like that?” She pointed at the bare part of his chest

“I spilled food on the last good shirt I had.”

“Suuuure.” She ran off, presumably back to play her videos game.

PV sighed. He briefly considered digging around his closet for something else, but a graphic tee was equally as embarrassing if not more so and there wasn’t any time left anyway. He found Box staring at something in the corner kind of suspiciously.

“O-oh! PV, you're here, what a surprise!”

“I live here.”

PV made a special note of the fact that Box didn’t immediately run up and hug him. Instead, the shorter man nervously kicked something behind him. PV used his powerful deduction skills to come to the difficult conclusion that Box broke something. That is to say, Box was terrible at hiding things but PV didn’t have the energy to care. He could always buy a new overly pretentious glass or ceramic figure.

“A-and it’s such a nice place!” He laughed nervously. “Might I add, that shirt looks really good on you!” 

Box’s eyes were glued to the bare part of PV’s chest, prompting the taller man to defensively raise a hand to the offending area. Before Box could notice the strange movement, PV turned and gestured with the same hand for Box to follow as if that was his plan all along. He could’ve sworn there was a slight blush on the shorter man’s face.

“The lab we’re working in is this way.”

“Oh ok!” Box ran after PV with a box of parts and blueprints. When the pair were walking side by side, Box matched PV’s pace.

“Here, we are.” PV opened the door and gestured for Box to enter first. “You can put the parts on that table over there.”

After slamming the box of parts and blueprints down, Box looked around curiously. 

“Pretty nice set up you got here!”

“Thanks.” He put on his lab coat. He briefly considered buttoning it up all the way, but that would probably only draw more attention to the offending piece of cloth. “I need you to sit over there for me real quick.” He pointed at a chair on one end of the room without looking at Boxman.

“What for?”

PV opened a cabinet and pulled out some supplies.

“I need some DNA samples from you.”

“Uh, f-for what?” He laughed nervously, paying close attention to PV as he sauntered to the shorter villain.

“I need to make sure the biochip doesn’t mistake you as it’s enemy. Now open up, I need to swab your cheek.”

Once PV sealed the used swab in a bag, Box spoke again.

“Wait, couldn’t you just, like take a hair or- ow!”

“Yes, thank you for reminding me.” He put a green strand of hair in another bag. “I should get a blood sample too just to be sure.”

“No, wait I-I didn’t sign up for this!” He started climbing his chair in an attempt to escape.

“Well, it’s best not to take this stuff too lightly. Last time I didn’t take proper precautions with this sort of stuff, it was...  _ Nasty _ .” He pulled out a newspaper clipping from a story about a villain being vaporized by his own creation.

“Ya know what, I-I think I’ll t-take my chances with the needles.”   
“Good Box.” PV patted the shorter man on the head and put the clipping away. “Make sure you haven’t eaten anything or taken any sort of medication that might get in the way before you show up next Sunday.” He made his way to a cabinet opposite Boxman and put the DNA samples somewhere safe.

“S-so you aren’t poking me with needles today? Phew!” Box dramatically wiped his forehead.

“Oh, no. I very much still need to inject you with my anti-venom. Just in case.”

“Wait, what?”

PV turned around and laughed.

“Kidding! I don’t have it ready yet.”

“PV! You’re gonna give me a heart attack, geeze!” Box clutched his chest.

“Oh really? Well I’m very sorry for that.” PV replied with an air of sarcasm.

Box mumbled, “Bitch…”

“Oh am I now?” PV responded playfully.

Box turned beet red, “Y-you heard that!”

PV responded by casually walking up to Box and using his height to loom over the shorter man.

“Yeah.” PV whispered as a devilish smile spread across his face.

At this point Box might as well have been part boiled lobster. He had also completely lost his ability to speak outside of a confused and terrified collection of squeaks and similar noises. PV laughed maniacally, he was eating up Box’s flustered suffering.

“You’re fun to mess with, you know that?”

“Eh… um… I-I…”

PV chuckled and patted Box on the head.

“Alright, I’ve had my fun. Let’s get to work Box.” He went to the table with the box to get started and Boxman followed.

The cyborg let out a sigh of relief and got to work. The pair of villains worked together for quite a while without further incident. Eventually though, nature’s call reared its ugly head.

“...and that’s why I’m not invited to any parties!” Boxman finished his story.

“If you ask me, you’re better off without. The parties are always so stuffy.”

“Yeah, I s’pose you’d know an awful lot more about it than me! Still, it would be nice to get invited at least!” Boxman chuckled a bit.

PV shrugged. “Eh.”

“Oh, hey PV, where’s the bathroom? I kinda have’ta go.”

PV sighed, “Follow me.”

It was at that moment, that PV learned the true importance of that other bathroom.


	14. Sewer Level

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV heads to the sewers to buy more of Fink's favorite juice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated or responded to comments lately! I've been kinda busy with my finals at school, but I think I've finished them now so I should have more time to work on the story! (yay!) The next few chapters are more focused on my original characters and the main plot, so there won't be much voxman shipping for a few chapters.

_ He ran out of juice. _

More specifically, Fink’s favorite juice. And there was only one place he could find the stuff: in the sewers! All good things are found in the sewers apparently, that’s where he found Fink after all.

“I can’t wait to tell Lucy aaaaaaaaaall about my anniversary present!”

“And I’m sure she can’t wait to hear about it.”

He was taking Fink with him because she absolutely adored crawling through sewer tunnels. That, and also she had a really close friend named Lucy who ran a little weapons shop in the black market they were currently heading towards. Letting Fink run off with her friend not only made her very happy, but it also got her out of his hair for a bit. It also helped keep that little creep far far away from him; Cob he hated that little brat. 

“This should be a decent place to park.”

PV parked the convertible in an empty alleyway, hopefully keeping the duo out of view of any possible P.O.I.N.T. members or ruffians in the area. He looked around to see if there was anyone watching before grabbing the supplies they brought with them and stepping out of the car. He wasn’t in his white boots today since they were too delicately colored for such a gross environment. He looked around before attempting to lift the nearest manhole cover with a grunt.

“Fink, come help me lift this.”

“I gotcha, Boss!” She grabbed the other end of the cover and the pair shifted it off the hole.

“All right,” He breathed out heavily, “You go first.”

“‘Kay!”

As the little rat made her way down the dark hole, PV took the time to make extra sure no one was watching. When he decided the coast was clear, he climbed down himself and made a sorry attempt to cover the hole back up. It didn’t really work well because of his weak nerd arms though. By the time he decided to tactically retreat from the hole, Fink already had her flashlight on and was exploring the surrounding area.

There were glowing mushrooms dotting the walls and floors as a result of that time a mysterious villain poured a small amount of nuclear waste down here a good two or three decades ago. And by mysterious villain, he meant him. He poured the waste down here when he was still a hero by accident. Thankfully, the radiation levels had gone back to safe levels a long time ago. There were also various smaller tunnels connected to the larger hall they were currently in. They would inevitably have to go through a few of those to get to the black market.

“Woah! Boss, come look at this cool fungus thingy!”

“You should leave that alone, we don’t know how dangerous it is.”

“Awww.”

He pulled out his own unnecessarily expensive flashlight and began his journey through the labyrinth of gross sewer tunnels. He knew where he was heading, but that didn’t really make it any easier. There were many entrances and many chambers looked awfully similar. The one they were currently in was a long, filthy hallway with a canal of sewage running next to them. There were markings to lead him to where he wanted to go, but they were hard to see and properly decipher in the dark halls. Their locations were fairly obvious if you knew what to look for though.

“Woohoo!”

Fink suddenly ran ahead and hopped in a puddle and laughed as it splashed. A bit of the gross water splashed all over PV, reminding him why he wore one of his least favorite outfits when he went on black market runs. At least Fink seemed to be enjoying herself though. Honestly, PV was also just happy she wasn’t trying to swim in the poo water this time. He shuddered as he thought about it.

_ Yikes. That was certainly a contender for the worst day of my life… _

PV noticed pairs of red eyes looking at him from some of the smaller and darker spaces. He didn’t really have time to react, since Fink quickly ran after some of the eyes.

“I’m gonna getcha!” She laughed as she chased after one of the pairs.

PV heard some small skittering as they were all frightened away. A triumphant Fink came skipping back to his side.

“I got rid of ‘em for ya boss!”

“Good work.” He ruffled her hair a little before continuing, “I bet they won’t mess with us now.”

Fink giggled and ran ahead.

“Fink! Stay close, it’s not-”

She was already too far ahead of him to hear, so he sighed. His moment of mild agitation ended quickly, because she got a little too close to the edge of the channel of wastewater. PV utilized one of the special father figure super powers he developed after years of taking care of a small child, his dad power walk. Truly, there was no fatherly power greater and more terrifying than the dad power walk. She turned behind her and jumped a bit as PV quickly scooped the little rat up before she could fall in the water. Seriously though, dad power walks are terrifying. He sighed a little in relief. 

“Wow, Boss that was close!”

“Yeah, it sure was.”

He put her down, and she continued to run farther ahead, as if she learned nothing from the last few seconds. He gave up and pulled out a notebook to look at the symbols he had written down. If Fink wanted to take a poo water bath, then she could keep him out of it. He looked around to see if any of the symbols were present, and low and behold there was one written by a smaller tunnel entrance.

“Fink!”

The little rat came running to her boss’s side and the two entered the much smaller tunnel. This one would be much safer for Fink to run around in, but there was far less space. PV watched as she ran around looking at various things anyway, and looked around as he went and entered another marked tunnel. This led to the first puzzle. Apparently, to make extra certain heroes stay out, the one in charge of the market as a whole put puzzles in the way. He also really seemed to like puzzles and illusions or something. The puzzle in question involved a dead end room full of different markings. Thankfully, the room was well lit so they didn’t need their flashlights. He had been here frequently, but that didn’t make it any easier to remember the right one. He looked back to his notebook of markings and compared them to the markings on the walls.

“It was this one right Boss?”

PV looked at the mark Fink directed him to and looked back at his book to compare.

“Hmmm, yes.”

She pressed the marking into the wall and a secret passage opened up.

“Nicely done, Fink.”

“Does this mean we’re gonna get ice cream later?”

“Maybe.”

After entering a passage, they came across more marked tunnels. Some of them had different markings for danger, shortcut, rest, and several other markings. The pair obviously avoided the danger symbols and took the shortcuts. Eventually, they ran into yet another puzzle. This room had a large gap between one side of the room and the other. PV already knew the gap was just an illusion, and the pair passed by the puzzle with flying colors.

As they continued on their way, they went through a few more marked tunnels and rooms. At this point, there were no more glowing mushrooms creating light. The only light present was from their flashlights. Fink was running around as usual, then suddenly stopped. Her ears flicked a little and she looked around before suddenly sprinting back to her boss.

“Boss!” She whispered warily, “Somebody’s runnin’ ‘round the tunnels that way!”

PV couldn’t hear anything, but he trusted his minion’s judgement. He pressed himself and Fink against the wall in order to hide from the possible enemies. The pair turned off their flashlights with a click, contrasting the dripping that was the only other noise PV could hear at the moment. Darkness devoured them quickly, and PV quickly forgot the layout of the tunnel around him. Eventually, however, the shadows began to loosen their strangling grip. Somewhere to the left of the tunnel exit, a dim light was slowly approaching. Fink was right; PV could hear the distant conversation and footsteps getting closer.

And closer.

**And closer.**

With the new light source quickly approaching, he desperately searched for an escape route just in case it became necessary. He spotted a small tunnel to his right, unfortunately in the direction of the voices and way tighter than he would have liked but it would do in a pinch. As the unknown figures got closer, he could hear the voices more clearly. There were about six people in total.

“Are we really sure this is the right guy?”

“Well, he’s purple and kinda tall. That’s in the description we were given.”

_ Shit, they’re after me. _

He started inching his way to the other tunnel quietly so as not to alert them.

“What about the green child he has with him though?”

“Probably a minion or something.”

“I’m not sure we should be involving the child in this, maybe we should just come back-”

“We have a job to do! Kid or not, we need to do it. We don’t know when we’ll get another chance like this!”

“Yeah, I know, but this isn’t really the kind of stuff a child should have to see, ya’ know? Besides, if she really is his minion, we’re gonna have to fight her too and I’m not sure how I feel about hurting a little girl…”

“Geez, ya big baby. She’s a villain; villains don’t deserve our mercy. If you really care so much-”

“Quiet!”

There was a short silence soon after the new voice silenced the others. This one must have been the leader based on the toughness and age in their voice. During this time, Fink started squirming her way into the small tunnel. Shortly afterwards, their assailants began talking again.

“Are we even going the right way?”

“I know I heard something coming from this direction, besides, if it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have to worry about that in the first place.”

“Everyone shut up! If they really are in this direction, they could probably hear us and might have run off by now!” The leader spoke up again.

As PV made his way in the tunnel after Fink, he accidentally stepped in a puddle, creating a loud splash. The sound was made even louder by the fact that the group trailing him quieted down once again.

“THAT WAY!”

They all started to run in PV’s direction. He sprinted into the tunnel and scooped Fink up as he ran by. He could hear the steps getting closer, so he tried to get them off his trail by turning into different tunnels. Unfortunately, it’s never that easy and they were able to follow him anyway. They came to a four way intersection and ran down the tunnel to the left. He could hear the people following debate for half a second before splitting up between the tunnels. Two of them went down his tunnel, which were still too many possible P.O.I.N.T. heroes to take on with just him and Fink.

“Boss, I have an idea!”

She suddenly tossed the glowing mushrooms PV explicitly told her to stay away from down a tunnel to the left and PV ran down a tunnel on the right.

“Fink, I-” He whispered aggressively before suddenly realizing that probably saved them and it was pointless to scold her over it now. After a while of sprinting, he ran into a marked chamber and hid behind a wall to catch his breath. He didn’t have the endurance he had before as a hero, so he instead slumped his much frailer body against the wall and gasped for breath.

_ I really need to get back in shape. _

As the adrenaline died out, he could feel dull aches and pains begin assaulting his body. Some of them were undoubtedly from older age or from exercise. But, some of the pain was also from the times he might have hit things or ran into the walls without immediately realizing as he ran. The passage behind him suddenly closed up. PV’s attention was drawn away from his aches and pains, and instead drawn to the bright red light that suddenly filled the room and the spikes that sprouted out of the ceiling as it slowly approached the floor. They had run into a trap room.


	15. White's Black Market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things happen.

_ Was this even real? _

The villain in charge of the black market used a lot of illusionary magic after all. Hell, some of the more extreme trap rooms were just illusions too. He knew from experia-

**_Fwip!_ **

A poison dart flew past PV’s face after Fink pushed a symbol on the wall in a panicked state.

_ Nope! Not an illusion! _

PV got up and ran in the direction of the terrified Fink. She started pushing more buttons, triggering more dart and spike traps. One trap even caused sections of the floor to rise to the ceiling or fall under ground. He had to dodge several darts, but PV managed to swoop in right before Fink got impaled by a spike.

“Cob Fink, You’re going to give me a heart attack!”

He jumped off a section of the floor that started rising to the spikes above. As he watched its movement, PV noticed that they went all the way to the spikes on the ceiling, but it didn’t stop the steady shrinking of the room. In fact, the ceiling seemed to be moving faster now.

“Sorry, Boss!”

As he was distracted by the ceiling above, the floor they were on started shifting downwards. PV helped Fink out and she helped him pull himself out just in time for lava to start oozing out onto the floor.

“Boss, are we gonna die?” Fink looked up to him with terror in her eyes

As the spikes grew closer, PV looked at the symbols in his notebook, then at the ones on the walls.

“No.” He answered confidently as he weaved his way over to the symbol he was looking for and pressed it in. A door suddenly opened on the other side of the room and the pair of villains booked it as the lava started pouring into the rest of the room. The spikes were also getting so close, PV had to crouch down as he ran to the door. This was going to be close, and his back would definitely not be thanking him tomorrow morning. As they got closer to the door, the ceiling was too low for PV to run at a good speed anymore. He did a running slide out the door immediately after Fink got through. She must have dropped her flashlight on the way since she tried to pull a Joanna India and grab it before the spiky ceiling could crush it to bits. PV quickly stopped her though, since he refused to watch Fink lose her hand over something an action movie taught her. The expensive flashlight made a series of crunches and pops as it was crushed into nothingness.

“Awww.”

“I can buy a new flashlight, but I can’t buy another Fink.”

“Awww!”

She gave her boss a big hug and he hugged back. He would scold her for pressing all those buttons without his lead, but he was just glad she was safe. The moment was fairly short lived though.

“I’mma tell Lucy all about this!”

PV shuttered at the thought of that demon child. Fink immediately ran off further into the tunnels, and PV turned his Flashlight back on. The people chasing them probably weren’t going to be a problem anymore. He noticed a little dart sticking out of his shoulder, so he pulled it out. It stung a lot coming out, but the pain was over rather quickly. Hopefully, he would be fine considering he was immune to a lot of snake venoms. This probably wouldn’t be any different, so he tossed it to the side.

“Fink! Stay where I can see you!”

“Yes Boss!”

PV took a look around to gather his bearings and figure out where they might be.

“I can work with this.”

Turns out they weren’t too far from the black market, just a few more twists and turns and they would be at one of the boats. In order to get to the market, they had to take a small boat rowed by a tall, bird-like but still humanoid robot. The robot was actually so tall, it was just a little taller than him. It could be assumed that this was one last effort to keep heroes out, but that didn’t always work considering the big boss was the only one who seemed to care.

“There!” Fink pointed towards the row boat ahead and ran towards it.

“Fink!”

At long last, they had arrived at their destination. The robot in charge of bringing customers over from this entrance was from a far more successful rival company to Boxmore. PV would have much rather ordered from them, if it wasn’t for the fact that they were a rival of his as well.

_ Damn company’s going to replace us all with robots and clones that are better than us. I bet they're going to be responsible for the next apocalypse too. _

He grumbled to himself a little as he climbed into the boat and the robot slowly rowed away. As they got closer to the market, the dirty channel became lit by purple demon flames. They were always beautiful every time he went through here. He considered bringing Box sometime, then looked over to the emotionless, gray, blue, and purple robot and realized that was probably a bad idea. Eventually, the robot rowed the boat into a larger room filled with a bustling crowd of people. As the robot quietly docked the boat, PV could read various signs. Many were advertising the various stores and what they sold, some were praising the boss, and one sign overhead read “Welcome to White’s Market!” He couldn’t help but believe it was kind of ironic that someone going by White Shroud started a black market. 

The chamber as a whole was lit by various chandeliers and candles lit with the same purple demon fire from earlier. PV wasn’t sure if it was some sort of elaborate illusion or if it really was fire. The walls were made of stone bricks and the floors were tile. The area was also notably cleaner and smelled much sweeter than the rest of the sewers. The entire chamber seemed to resemble a repurposed evil boss room of sorts, kind of like one from Fink’s videos game. There were crowds of villains milling around and checking out the merchandise. These villains, unlike him, were all ruffians. Their outfits were dirty and tattered, and many of them were either muscle bound brutes or cloaked thieves. This was the less glamorous side of the villain world; the one with jagged poison daggers, broken bones and bruises, and pickpockets. PV much preferred career villainy involving stuff like tax evasion and money laundering schemes or classical villainy like what Boxman did.

“I’mma go find Lucy!”

“Fine, just don’t cause any problems for her or anyone else while you’re at it.”

“No promises!” Fink called back as she ran off towards a massive crowd.

Fink always spoke highly of her, but PV was genuinely terrified by the strange aura surrounding that kid.

As PV made his way through the crowd, he could see all the various vendors. Shroud often employed joke villains, children, and robots to work for him. It was bizarre, but it worked pretty well for him apparently. PV was looking for the general goods store towards the back. On rare occasions, Shroud would sell there and it had the particular brand and flavor of juice he was looking for. PV wasn’t sure how Shroud got ahold of something that’s been discontinued for so long, but he wasn’t about to question it knowing how common time travel was these days. 

This time, the shop was manned by another one of the bird-men robots. Shroud preferred to be paid in cash, so PV respected that by offering his technos in paper as he pointed to the juice boxes in the fridge. He didn’t have to use words with the robots, and they didn’t seem to have the ability to speak either. It was the perfect customer/machine relationship; no wonder people like these robots better than Boxmore’s. The robot simply opened the clear door of the display fridge and pulled out the juice and handed it over.

“Thank you.”

The robot bowed in response and the next person in line started shopping. PV decided he’d wait a bit for Fink to spend time with her friend, so he sat down on a bench. People watching was always one of his favorite past times. He settled his attention on a villain wearing a cloak who appeared to be trying to order from the occult shop. Unfortunately for the customer, the vendor was notorious for being lazy and talking back to customers when he didn’t want to work. PV couldn’t hear anything in particular, but he could definitely tell the customer was getting angry. They slammed the table with massive jelly arms and yelled something unintelligible while the vendor was reading a book and leaning against the towering bookshelves behind him. He stopped for a second, looked up then continued reading. This only pissed the customer off further and they threw something at the vendor, knocking the book right out of the teen boy’s hands? Claws? Hand and claws. He chucked a good 20 books at the customer at once with magic powers of some sort and gave a half hearted laugh before leaning back against the bookshelf to continue reading.

PV laughed to himself a little, as the customer dug themself out of the pile of books and cursed at the boy. When they turned around to leave, PV recognized this character as one of the heroes who frequently finds her way down here. PV had “borrowed” her cells before, so it was probably a good idea for him to continue his people watching somewhere else. His head wasn’t feeling exceptionally well though all of a sudden and he stumbled a bit getting up. 

“Oof..” PV clutched at his head for a second and remembered the dart that hit him.

If the dart was lethal he would be dead by now, so he knew he would be fine after a short rest. He decided it was probably time to go and grabbed Fink to head back. They went to the ice cream shop the next day, and Venomous ate neapolitan ice cream.


	16. I Can't Stop Making New Ocs Please End Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV's latest experiment is a success, so now it's time to make the big money... If he can...

_ The bush rustled. _

PV stumbled a bit as he got up. He had to get back inside and get back to work. The last thing he remembered was getting followed by what appeared to be another member of P.O.I.N.T. after he went out. He had no idea how he got in the bush, but right now he was in pain and needed to work. That was all that mattered. He stumbled back inside his lair, and thankfully Fink was asleep so he didn’t have to worry about her seeing him in this state. After running into a wall or two, he finally made it to his bathroom and got himself a cup of water. He swallowed one of his pain killers; the weak rattle of the bottle told PV that he would have to buy more soon though. He sat down for a bit and sucked on a lollipop. He didn’t like to engage in such bad habits when Fink was awake.

It always took a while for PV to feel better, but he had a lot of work to do when he did. A while back, the Board of Villains paid him big money for a project involving a power boosting serum and another serum. Originally, PV had been working on them to see if he could get his powers back. He lost his career as a hero with those powers. He lost interest in heroism years ago, but he still missed having any sort of powers at all. PV didn’t want any of the other villains to remember he had no powers, so he made the serums under the guise he was selling them. Unfortunately, it turns out the fruits of his labor could only amplify what was already there, not replace what was lost. On the bright side, he would undoubtedly be paid well. Money was always nice.

PV entered the lab, took a few drops of the serum, and dropped them into a petri dish. This dish had samples of living cells he “borrowed” from that hero with regeneration abilities he dealt with a while back. The professor looked at the dish under the microscope and observed the changes. At first, there was nothing. Suddenly, the cells began to explode in numbers. The petri dish would be overflowing with life in no time. The experiment was a success! Then the dish started to crack.

_ Shit. _

PV rushed to grab the second serum and messily dropped some of it on the multiplying cells. 

**_Drip._ **

…

...

Everything stopped. PV sighed.

This serum was based on the powers he used to have. Since PV couldn’t get his powers back, he instead decided he would recreate them externally. In fact, Fink’s collar was built under similar premises. Unfortunately, an important component in the collar reacted poorly with his sensitive skin and ended up leaving a nasty scar. PV shuddered as he remembered those few days in bed. And then of course, there was the fact that it got infected and he ended up in the hospital. That was certainly awkward considering he was legally dead after all. Nevertheless, both serums were in working order and ready to be sold to Billiam!... The other client coming in tonight was a bit more concerning. However, he didn’t really have time to worry about  _ her _ at the moment since Billiam would be here any second.

**_Vrrt vrrt._ **

In fact, he was certain he was already here. He didn’t even have to check his phone to know, it was undoubtedly Billiam. He tossed his lollipop stick in the trash. PV let the golden man in and they talked as they headed towards the lab. 

“Oh Professor Venomous! How have you been?”

“Fine, you?”

“Wonderful! Business has been booming lately, in spite of Boxman. Say, you’re not still hanging around him now are you?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“Good. It would be such a waste of talent.” Billiam replied venomously.

They entered the lab.

“So, what is this “special project” of yours hmm?”

“It’s a pair of serums,” PV grabbed the vials and lifted up the one in his left hand, “The mint green one enhances powers,” He lowered it and raised the other, “but this black one, well, I think you’ll really like this one…” 

A devilish smile spread across Venomous’s face and Billiam clapped eagerly.

“Oooh, I can’t wait for the demonstration!”

PV grabbed a new petri dish and tossed the broken one in the trash.

“This petri dish carries living cells I,  _ ahem _ , ‘borrowed’ from someone with regenerative powers. When I use just a small drop like this,” PV put a drop of serum on the dish, causing the cells to multiply more rapidly than they already did. They broke the dish and developed into what appeared to be a hand “The cells regenerate even faster. Now, if I drop a bit of the other one in,” The mass of cells halted immediately. “All their powers are completely gone!”

“How delightfully vile, Professor! I’m happy with your progress so far.”

“Thank you. I was hoping I might be able to create some sort of artificial glorb, but this is all I’ve been able to manage at the moment. I think I’m heading down the right direction though.”

“I can’t wait, I’ll gladly increase funding on your future endeavors!”

This earned a slight genuine smile from Venomous, and he hoped it would go unnoticed.

“You know, I’ve always been fond of that intelligence of yours.”

“I’ve noticed.” PV responded with a fabricated suaveness.

“Perhaps I could show you around one of my private island lairs one of these days, hmm? It must be awfully stressful to toil away in this lab all the time, my boy.”

“That’s a tempting offer, but I’ll have to pass. I still have a lot I need to attend to at the moment.”

“How unfortunate, but I admire your work ethic. Oh well, my offer still stands if you change your mind!”

With those parting words, Billiam left. The golden man took a weight off PV’s shoulders with him. He didn’t really want to be around Billiam at the moment. Sure he occasionally flirted with him and he may or may not have gone through with some of Billiam’s desires a few times. And sure he occasionally enjoyed his time with the golden man, but he really wasn’t in the mood right now. For some reason, he couldn’t get Boxman out of his head. 

_ Damn, I have feelings for Box don’t I. _

Now he had finally said it. Not out loud, he was too manly to show feelings. That and the author still has to write over 3,000 more chapters of this monstrosity. Venomous had a short moment of calm to think what he felt over-

**_Vrrrrrrrrrrrt. Vrrrrrrrrrrt._ **

-Before Vormulax gave him a call.

“Hello?” PV asked innocently.

“WHY DID YOU LIE TO BILLIAM?” She shouted.

“Me? Lie? Whatever could you mean?”

“DONT PLAY DUMB, YOU TOLD HIM YOU WEREN’T HANGING OUT WITH BOXMAN!”

“I said I wasn’t hanging out with him at the moment. No lies there.”

“I HAVE EVIDENCE!”

“Perhaps from the weekend, but not from today. Like I said, I’m not seeing him at the moment. Now if you could please stop screaming, I’ve done nothing wrong and have work to get to.”

“SPILL THE BEANS!”

“No. They shall remain thoroughly unspilled because there are no beans to spill. Now I’m going to hang up, because I have another client arriving in a few minutes and you’re starting to give me a migraine.”

“PROFESSOR VE-”

PV sighed but he couldn’t hear it through the ringing in his ears. There was something eerie about the mentions of Boxman. Billiam’s concerns made sense considering the yacht incident, but Vormulax’s knowledge was concerning. Perhaps the shorter man wasn’t very careful when driving or maybe he ran his mouth to the wrong people. He was going to have to scold Box for it after he rejected another incoming call from Vormulax... And another one.

Box, why is Vormulax aware of our meetings?~

“Having a tough time recently, now aren’t we?”

PV jumped at the unexpected female voice coming from behind him. He turned around to face the newcomer, and in that moment PV understood what happened. A short red imp with one full horn on the shaved side of her head slowly made her way out of the shadows. He could only see one half of her face since the other half was covered in puffy and choppy brown hair. She wore a salmon suit coat over a black shirt, but didn’t wear pants because “Pants are for the weak” and her brown goat fur covered everything. The tag on her uncovered ear was a similar shade of gold to her tie and her visible eyeris. Her name was Devil’s Dealer, but most villains simply referred to her as DD.

“So, do you have what I asked for?” DD smiled innocently.

“Why did you tell Vormulax? I thought we had an agreement.”

DD giggled innocently as she spoke, “An agreement you broke.”

“Excuse me?”

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way DD should be able to fly. Her wings were too small to get her little goat-like body off the ground. The imp, of course, flew anyway because DD didn’t care what humans thought was impossible. And now she was fluttering in front of PV and shoving a piece of parchment into his face.

“Well, according to the contract you signed, you get my protection and I make your past disappear. In return, all you had to do was not damage my property, avoid buying from my competitors, and do some little science projects for me.” She waved the fingers of her free hand in PV’s face after sending the parchment back into some other dimension with her fire.

“And I followed your rules.”

“Oh really now? Then how come I caught you at White’s?”

The fluttering imp held up a polaroid of Venomous and Fink entering the sewers, then summoned another one from behind them as they entered the market.

“Well how was I supposed to know he was your rival?! Wait, how did you-”

“Seriously? We’re both demons selling general goods, how the Hell did you not know that?” DD pulled out another image, “You were also caught using your little pet rat to destroy a hero on my territory!” After sending that last image back into whatever Hell dimension it came from, DD finally dropped back down to the ground and adjusted her coat and tie. She turned around, confident that she had won. “But you know what, I’m a very generous and forgiving imp-”

“- imp, so you like to give your signees another chance after breaking their contracts, I get it. Same thing all the time.” PV crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.

The imp spun around to face him and started a small fire around her with the force of her anger. “For one: don’t interrupt me! Two: if you get it then why do you keep breaking my contracts!” 

“Please don’t start a fire in my lab.” PV started walking towards the serums from earlier. “I wasn’t able to quite replicate what I created in the past, but I did manage to create something else you might find valuable. He grabbed the black serum, “This isn’t permanent, but it will last long enough to cause some issues.”

“Gimme!” DD snatched the vial out of his hands.

“Hey! You need to pay-” suddenly a finger was lifted up to his face

“Op! You owe me, so I’ll be taking this for free. Consider it your payment for breaking our contract.” She landed and laughed maniacally, “Oh, and I think a certain popular hero group might leave you alone now too.”

“Wait… you…?”

“But the Boxman thing stays, I’m not wasting my time erasing that when this dinky little failure doesn’t quite fit the standards of what I wanted.”

Before he could protest further, the vile imp woman left PV alone to his thoughts. He couldn’t believe he let this tiny terror walk all over him. She had far too much dirt on Venomous to fight back though. On the bright side, at least he wouldn’t have to deal with P.O.I.N.T. anymore. He pulled out another lollipop.


	17. TiTlE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SuMmArY

_ PV loved the weekend. _

Unfortunately, he didn’t have too much bio stuff he could do at the moment, especially considering he left his own stuff back home.

“Hey, Box.”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“I’m not sure why you still want to meet at your place, there really isn’t much else I can do anymore.”

“Oh, that’s no big deal! You can help me with the robotic stuff if ya want!”

“Ok.”

That was the conversation, so now he was at Boxmore. PV was willing to take just about any excuse to be around Box. He wasn’t sure if Box was gay or not, but PV was definitely into him. He had accepted this. Even so, he was still a little concerned regarding Box’s reputation. What if PV decided to ask the shorter villain out? He could hear what the other villains had to say about it already. They’d say something like, “Venomous have you lost your mind?”, “Venomous, what were you thinking?”, “Venomous, you could do so much better!”, or “Venomous, how could you?!” Cob forbid they say things like, “Pick a side!,” or “Ew, how disgusting.”, or “I don’t want to do business with you anymore.” PV’s mind went wild with more possibilities, some far worse. Some of the possibilities involved being ridiculed worse than Box was. Then his mind wandered to a darker place. What if they didn’t just cease business with him or ridicule him, what if the other villains attacked him? What if the other villains attacked Fink? What if-

“Oh hey, PV I found this really cool article about powers and stuff the other day. I didn’t really understand most of it, but I figured you’d find it pretty interesting!” He laughed nervously a little as he started digging around near the table they were working at.

“Oh, really.”

“Oh yeah, it’s gotta lotta stuff about mutations and cells, or whatever.”

PV was honestly kind of happy Box snapped him out of his thoughts. Box pulled a newspaper out of the aether, and showed it to PV. The Headline read, “Mad scientist discovers cause of powers; tries to recreate the mutation.”

“It kinda reminded me of you, since you’re pretty smart and all.”

“Oh, thank you.”

He took the newspaper in his hands; genuinely interested in what it had to say. His heart was beating fairly quickly as he read the paper. It was genuinely kind of sweat that Box was thinking about him, he even called him smart. Unfortunately, the Article didn’t have any information he didn’t already know. This scientist had certainly attempted to give themselves more powers, but it really didn’t work. In fact, they appear to have had similar results as PV: they ended up practically unrecognizable and horribly disfigured. Box had turned back to his work a while ago, so he decided to take a moment to study the shorter man’s actions instead of focusing on his past mistakes.

Box moved quickly and efficiently. PV didn’t understand most of what the shorter man was doing, but Box seemed to have a very good idea of where all the pieces went and how they worked. Box was making pretty good progress; meanwhile, PV was just sitting around reading a newspaper. Not to mention PV was also staring at his co-worker like a total creep. He looked back at the paper.

“Hmm, it was a pretty interesting read. I did it first though.”

“Wait, you did? Oh cob, I’m sorry did he steal your research?”

“No need to apologize, I seriously doubt he stole it from me. I, uh, don’t really like talking about it too much.” PV looked away.

“What is there to be ashamed of?”

“I just... don’t like talking about it.” He said quietly.

“I mean, it’s perfectly okay for you to tell me, I won’t judge ya. I’ve done some pretty weird stuff with robots before-”

“It’s not like that, I just- I don’t think you’d understand.”

“It’s okay! You’re snake stuff seems pretty cool, but if your not-”

“Those aren’t my powers Boxman!”

“Oh? What are your powers then?” Box quieted down, clearly shaken up from PV suddenly snapping at him.

“I really don’t want to talk about it…” His head was pounding; PV really needed to get a grip on his emotions around Box. “Now if you excuse me I have a really bad migraine.”

PV sat down on the incredibly sad couch and pulled out his water bottle and medication. He sat there for a bit after swallowing, just to make sure he was feeling better and Box sat next to him. He gave PV a gentler hug than he usually did.

“I’m sorry for pushing so hard, you seem like you need a hug though.”

“Thanks.” PV practically whispered.

PV sighed. He didn’t tend to be a very touchy person, but he wasn’t about to protest either. The hug felt kind of nice too, so he leaned into it a bit. PV briefly considered telling Box about his lack of powers, but he was reminded of past reactions. Many villains saw it as an exploitable weakness, so why would Box be any different? After a while, PV’s head stopped hurting.

“Welp,” PV declared as he unceremoniously slithered out of Box’s grasp to stand up and stretch, “I’m feeling better now.”

The two made their way back towards their shared work space. Once they got settled in, Box started up conversation again.

“Hey PV, I found this weird snake last night. He had two heads, can you believe that? Two heads! I was scared he might be poisonous or something-”

“Snakes are almost exclusively venomous, Box, not poisonous.”

“Wait, there’s a difference?”

Pv turned to stare back at Box judgmentally. “Yeah, poison works through touch, inhalation, or ingestion. Venom’s injected directly into a wound.” 

He turned back towards the project and tried very hard to put two pieces of the robot baby together. It wasn’t working.

“Oh, that’s pretty cool I guess. So anyway, I didn’t touch the thing ‘cause I was scared he might be venomous or something. But If I see him again I might send you a picture, he was pretty cool lookin’.”

“Mhm.” PV was really starting to get frustrated with those pieces.

“I don’t really know an awful lot about animals and stuff like that, but I bet you know a lot about that sort of stuff!” Box laughed a little as he spoke.

“Uh Huh…” PV’s hands were shaking from the amount of force he was applying to those pieces of metal.

Boxman said something, but PV was so focused on pushing pieces of metal together, he started to tune him out. 

“...If there’s anything you need help with, I’m sure I could help you out too!”

“No assistance needed here.” Assistance was in fact needed here. Thankfully, with a big grunt, he did manage to eventually put the pieces together. Now he was going to play around with significantly more dangerous stuff. Yay!

“Oh, Good, I’m glad! How do you feel about spy movies? There’s this reeeaaally good one, but I don’t really have anyone to talk about them! My favorite…”

Box kept going for a while. PV really wanted to listen, but he also really didn’t want to hurt himself and was focusing all of his energy on the task at hand. He wasn’t quite sure how Box was able to talk so nonchalantly and work without anything really being affected; it was impressive. 

PV’s concentration was suddenly cut off as Box pressed up against him and grabbed PV’s hands. PV jumped a little as he felt Box’s rough and calloused hands; the chicken talon being a little more scaley. He somehow managed to keep his expression pretty deadpan, and PV hoped his purple skin would hide the huge blush spreading across his face.

“Seriously PV? If ya didn’t know how to build a robot, ya just shoulda told me.”

“I don’t need help…” PV grumbled to himself while avoiding eye contact with Box.

“Sure buddy, because these parts definitely go together. Did you even read my blueprints?”

PV mumbled to himself, “I don’t even understand what half the things are.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Box began guiding PV’s hands to the right pieces and put them together. Breathing became very difficult, and he was certain he was going to pass out if Box didn’t stop touching him soon. Granted, Box tended to keep a large portion of his factory colder than PV would normally like, so having Box’s warmth so close was a nice change of pace.

“When you’re building dangerous weapons, you need to be more careful. Woulda thought you’d be a little more graceful, I mean, we don’t want to blow up that pretty face of yours!” Box gave a big hearty laugh.

PV screamed internally, making extra sure his poker face didn’t reveal his true emotions. Box dropped one of the taller man’s hands and leaned forward to grab something with his human hand. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite reach with his short arms so Box just pushed PV into the table and reached forward.

“Just… Gotta… Get…”

PV was practically sweating bullets as Box struggled to reach. His poker face remained mostly unchanged, but he wasn’t used to being the one bent over tables. As Box struggled more and more to reach a group of fuses, he pushed into his science partner harder. This made breathing even more difficult than it already was, as now his lungs were being crushed between a table and a soft round place. PV wasn’t okay with this, not at all. And yet he still felt kind of disappointed that Box didn’t mean anything by it. He was just trying to reach the fuses on the far end of the table, so PV reached out and grabbed them for the shorter man.

“Oh, thank you!” Box suddenly seemed to realize what he did. “Whoopsie!” He patted his flustered co-worker on the back. “Must’a been pretty hard to breath!” nervously laughed and pressed his fingers together. It was kind of cute, but PV was still kind of flustered over the past few events. Thankfully, PV was very good at pretending to be calm when he really isn’t.

“It’s fine...”

“Welp, now that that’s done,” Box suddenly changed moods, “PV, why didn’t ya tell me you needed help!”

“I didn’t need help.”

“Yes you did, don’t lie to me! Look, I don’t wanna see you get yourself hurt-”

“Says the man with exploding markers.”

“Shut up and listen to me!” The shorter man waved his arms around wildly. As cute as it was, Box was clearly frustrated so PV decided to shut up. “You really need to ask people for help if you don’t know what you’re doin’!”

“...”

“...So?”

“I don’t really have anything to say. I don’t really want to waste your time or anything-”

“NO! YOU ARE NOT WASTING MY TIME! WE ARE GONNA LEARN SHI-”

Suddenly a timer dinged.

“Oh, would you look at that! It’s dinner time! Looks like we’ll have to continue this some other time!” PV hastily ran off to go get Fink.

“Wait a second, we are not done here!” Box chased after him.


	18. Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They eat food and shit.

“Hey, come back!” Box shouted down the hall as PV power walked his way to the playroom where Fink was being babysat.

As he entered the room, he was greeted with a fairly gastly sight.

“Yikes…”

The room was a mess. Shannon and a little blue Jethro seemed mostly fine, same with Fink. The only thing he could visibly see wrong with them was a bit of soot and rubble decorating Finks hair and clothes and the robots’ bodies. However, PV could have sworn there was a Darrel in here watching Fink too… There were toys scattered all over the room, probably a few more cracks in the walls and ceilings he didn’t see there earlier, the table appeared to be broken in half, and there was a small, ashy crater in the far left corner of the room with some scorch marks on the wall next to it. PV also noticed a few pieces of scrap metal lying around the area. He used his expert detective skills to deduce that someone blew up poor Darrel. Again.

Fink greeted PV happily, “Boss!”

Fink ran up and gave her Boss’s legs a tight squeeze. Shannon, on the other hand, seemed a little less stoked to see him there. Upon closer inspection, it seemed Fink was carrying a gun that looked like it might have been a part of Darrel at one point. Shannon immediately jumped out of the window the moment she realized Fink wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. That left poor Jethro all alone.

“Shannon was just showin’ me her new upgrades!”

“Oh, really?”

Fink giggled. “Yeah, we blew up all kindsa’ stuff!” PV lifted her up. “It was so cool!”

“Well, say goodbye to your friends because we're heading home.”

“Pfft, what? Yeugh! They’re not my friends!”

“I AM JETHRO”

Fink turned back behind her. “Shut up, Jethro!”

Boxman finally caught up. After catching his breath for a second, he deplored, “Wait, you’re leaving already?”

“Well, yeah. I usually get home pretty close to Fink’s bed time and it’s not like we have time...”

Box’s more aggressive expression was replaced with puppy dog eyes that bore into PV’s heart.

“...For…” PV sighed and looked away. “Fine, we’ll stay for dinner.” He put Fink down.

“Wait, what?” Fink practically shouted.

“I AM JETHRO.”

“I said shut up!” Fink aimed the gun at Jethro.

Before PV could fully process what was going on, Box ran up to him and crushed the taller man in his arms. Box hugged PV so hard, that he managed to lift the man off the ground a little.

“Oh, thank you so much!” Box shouted into PV’s chest.

PV could barely breathe.

“Could you- put- me down-?” PV struggled to speak through gasps for air.

Box nervously laughed and plopped his associate back on the ground. “Woopse! Sorry PV! Didn’t mean ta strangle ya’!” 

Box patted the taller man on the back as PV tried to pretend he wasn’t gasping for breath.

Box turned and started walking down the hall. “Welp, Imma go get-”

“Um, Boxman?”

The shorter man stopped, looked behind himself to see his associate, and hummed in response.

“No offense but-”

Fink interjected, “Your food tastes icky!”

PV scolded his young minion, “Fink!” After he cleared his throat and smoothed his hair out, PV continued, “What I meant was, I was planning on ordering takeout.”

Box looked down at the floor. “Oh…” He suddenly perked up and started walking away again. “More for me I guess-”

“Is there anything you guys want in particular?” PV had pulled out his phone and opened a food delivery app while Box was talking.

“Wh-wha?” Box stopped and looked up at PV in confusion.

Fink tugged on PV’s pant leg so she could get a better look. In response, her boss kneeled down so Fink didn’t have to struggle anymore.

Fink pointed at some expensive Italian place on the app. “I want that!”

“Okay.” Pv looked up and had to stifle a jump.

“Yeah that sounds good!” Box had somehow managed to move a few feet without PV noticing.

He wasn’t expecting Box to be that close. Cob, why was he so close? However, it was interesting looking up at the cyborg rather than down at him for a change.

“Ok.”

Fink pointed at what she wanted. “I want the tor-totr-tortititor-”

“Tortellini?” PV asked.

“Yeah, that!”

“Ok,” He stood up with a grunt and looked at Box. “And you?”

“Ooh! Lemme see what’s available!” Box snatched the phone out of PV’s hands.

PV began to protest, “Hey-...ah...” but he gave up rather quickly.

“Oooh, lasaga!”

John Boxman proceeded to order a good several plates of lasaga. PV assumed they were for the robots, although the idea of robots who ate human food was quite strange. After a while, Box handed back the phone. PV semi-aggressively snatched it back and ordered Manicotti for himself.

“Alright, it should be here in about fifteen minutes”

“I’ll get the table set up!” Box sprinted down the hall.

“But, wait! What are we… Ah, forget it… Let’s just find some place to sit down while we wait for the food to get here, okay?” 

“‘Kay!” Fink answered.

She grabbed her boss’s hand and they decided to take a quick look around the facility. PV noticed a few paintings, posters, and metal plant sculptures decorating some of the halls. He hadn’t really noticed them before, and he took a particular interest in the metal plants.

_ These are all really impressive, I wonder if he made these himself. _

After a short walk, PV found a place to sit and wait for the remaining ten or so minutes with Fink. He looked down at his phone to read emails and other business related messages. He’d read the news, but he preferred to get that on paper. After a few seconds, Fink inevitably got bored and started playing around with her boss’s hair. His hair was long enough that she could make some decently sized braids, but not long enough that it could all be neatly braided into one braid. She also had some flowers tucked away in a pocket from some unknown location.

“Fink, what are you doing?”

“Braidin’!”

“Oh, ok.” He turned back to his phone.

“Imma make ya’ look reaal good!”

“Ok... Wait,” He looked up again, “where did you get those flowers?”

The flowers she was carrying were very beautiful and healthy cornflowers. Most of them were blue or purple, but there were also some pinks, reds, whites, and a couple other hybrid colors. The healthiness of the flowers also told him that they were picked relatively recently. Considering how tall the plants can get and how short Fink was, it was a little shocking she managed to get so many. 

“Found ‘em!” Fink answered as she braided a purply-blue hybrid into his hair.

“Oh, ok.” 

He turned back to his phone again. Once nine of the ten remaining minutes had passed, he started to get up.

“Alright, I have to go get the food-”

“Wait!” Fink dragged PV back down so she could braid one last flower into his hair and finish the current braid off.

“There!”

“Alright,” PV got up and stretched as he spoke, “now we can go get the food.”

The duo headed to the front door of Boxmore to get the food just as the delivery boy arrived. He gave the tall purple man a weird look before handing him the several packages of food.

“Thank you.” PV took the food and started shutting the door.

“Oh, there was-”

PV closed the door before the boy could finish. There was no way he was going to give him a tip. He was pure evil after all, and there was nothing more evil than disrespecting service workers and refusing to tip them. The pair of villains began heading to the dining area.

“Psst, Boss!” Fink whispered, “If we act now we can take the food n’ run!”

“No, Fink. Boxman invited us to stay for dinner and it would be rude to leave now.”

“But he smells bad, and he’s loud, and-and-”

“Fink, please.”

“Why’re ya’ bein’ so nice to ‘im, Boss? He’s icky!” She stuck out her tongue in disgust.

PV simply grumbled in response; he didn’t have to justify himself to a child. Besides, they were almost to the dining room and he didn’t want Box to hear her insults. The room he walked into was very small and was similar shades of purples and reds to the rest of the facility. Along with a small, wooden table in the center of the room with five chairs surrounding it, there were also cabinets, counters, a furnace, and just about any other thing you’d expect in your average kitchen. PV had been in this room previously when Box had decided to “bake” PV another cake and ended up baking himself instead. However, a major detail was changed. The table now had some decent white tablecloth and a few mis-matching candles. There were also three plates and one of the five chairs had a little booster seat for Fink. In the center of the table, was an empty vase. Box was in the process of lighting the candles when he saw PV.

Box chuckled a little as he spoke, “Oh, heya PV! You’re back a little- heeey, what’s up with the Bachelor’s Buttons?”

“Excuse me?”

“The flowers in your hair.”

PV felt his braided hair and his hand ran across the Cornflowers.

_ Shit! I forgot about the flowers! _

“Oh, the cornflowers? Yeah, Fink put those there.” PV pretended it was no big deal, but he was very self conscious on the inside. “Oh, hey, Fink? Why don’t you put some of the extras in the vase?”

“But-”

PV glared at her.

“...Fine…”

Fink sulked over to the table and roughly stuffed some flowers into the vase.

“Oh, thank you! I was wonderin’ where I was gonna find some flowers!” Box chuckled.

PV placed their dinners down on the table and began digging the food out. Fink sat in the booster seat and Box sat at the right-most plate. That left PV’s seat right in between the two. PV sat down, handed Boxman his twenty boxes of lasaga, and started serving Fink her tortellini.

“There you go-”

“Ohhf cowf his shufffsh goo-!” Box suddenly yelled, not bothering to wait until everyone else got their food to start stuffing his mouth.

“Please, don’t talk with your mouth full.” PV ordered as he shielded his face from the escaping food.

Box swallowed before apologizing, “Woops! Sorry PV!” He rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

PV just glared at him and grumbled a little before deciding to serve himself finally. When he opened the package and prepared to put the contents on his plate, he finally realized what the delivery boy was actually starting to say before he shut the door. Instead of the Manicotti he ordered, he discovered some shitty ass, watery ass tortellini instead. Like, who the Hell mixes up manicotti with tortellini? Those are two very different things. And again, the dish wasn’t even prepared well! PV decided to try some of the tortellini despite how unappealing the sauce looked. He took one bite and realized this shit tasted even worse than it looked! However, the author was willing to accept this heinous crime against her childhood since she got to eat for free and the workers probably weren’t paid all that much. PV, however, paid big bucks for this shit. Never again. PV gently shifted his plate away from himself and suddenly realized Box had been saying something this entire time.

“...So, you should probably leave all the welding for me. Oh, hey, are ya’ gonna eat that?”

“No.”

“Sweet!” Box dragged the plate over to himself.

PV noticed that the shorter man had somehow managed to eat one of the lasagas already. He also made note of the fact that all the remaining lasagas were still in their packaging. He kind of assumed the other lasagas were for the robots, but seeing how they weren't at the table, PV guessed Box was saving the rest for later.

As Box started scraping the garbage tortellini onto his empty plate, he confronted PV, “If ya’ didn’t like it, why did you order it?”

“I didn’t. I ordered manicotti.”

“Oh, really?” Box started digging out a thing of lasaga. “Here, you can take some of mine then.”

“Oh, thank you.” PV graciously took the lasaga and put it on his plate.

The lasaga looked significantly more appetizing. Clearly, the cooks could make something, just not manicotti or tortellini apparently.

Box continued to speak after shoving some food in his mouth, “A-y whhay, jush sho you know, hor hu-ure re-herensh-”

“So how was your day Fink?”

“It was okay, but only because Darrel blew up!”

“Oh dear…”

“Yeah! It was real cool! He was all like ‘No, Fink! You can’t do that!’ and I was all like ‘Oh yeah?’ and he was like-”

“Hey, wait a second! You can’t just change the subject, I’m trying to help you!” Box started climbing on to the table, “This is important stuff and you need to know so you don’t-”

“Could you please get off the table, we’re kind of eating here.”

Box looked down in silence for a second before realizing.

“Oh! Sorry!” He hastily climbed off the table, “So any way-”

The night continued on like that for a while. Eventually though, an orange cat appeared out of nowhere to steal the lasaga. They all had to fight him off, but it honestly wasn’t that hard considering how fat and lazy the cat was. Box ended up just throwing him out the window and shut it to make sure the cat didn’t come back. Unfortunately, there were a few casualties. They shared a moment of silence for the lost lasagas before PV and Fink left for the night.


	19. Movie Night (Gone Wrong)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember that anti venom thing? Yeah, so anyway that's happening now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to post this early in celebration of the show being put on HBO Max! Thankfully, I already paid so I could watch Infinity Train, so now I can watch the whole series on my phone any time! Also, If you have Twitter and weren't already aware, we're trying to get #ThankyouOKKO to trend on the 6th at 3PM EST. So yee.

_ PV had Box sit down in a chair. _

“I managed to get my anti-venom done the other day, so we’ll be doing that today as well as drawing your blood.” He grabbed himself a surgical mask and a pair of gloves.

PV had to stop for a moment to stifle a yawn. He had been up extremely late the night before putting the finishing touches on the anti-venom, and it didn’t exactly help that the process of making his antivenom was already incredibly draining.

“Wait, what?”

“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to inject you with the anti-venom first since the biochip might get confused if your blood is slightly different.”

PV turned around to reveal a massive needle in one, upraised hand.

“NO! NO! NONONONONO! W-wait! Uh I-I-I don’t think we have to do this!” He was kicking and screaming so hard, he accidentally knocked the chair over. “Oof!”

“Box, calm down. It’s going to be okay,” PV responded quietly, “Just take it easy.” 

Slowly and cautiously, PV approached the panicking villain. He placed the needle down gently on a tray nearby. There was another one along with a couple vials and other tools necessary for the job at hand.

“W-we could just skip the anti-venom, I-It’s not like you’ll bite me or s-something! Uh...” 

Box’s eyes darted around the room.

In his state of desperation, Boxman picked up a chair. “I-I will- I will throw this!”

“Woah, Box. Calm down,” He was already too close for the chair to be properly thrown, but he was still cautious just in case Box hit him with it. He gently laid a hand on Box’s human hand. “I just want to make sure you’re safe. That’s all.”

Box slapped the hand off him and gestured threateningly with the chair. “Not until you give me a good enough reason to calm down!”

After backing up a few steps, PV practically whispered, “I… I’m not safe for you… Just please put the chair down. I’d feel really shitty if I killed you by accident.” He defensively raised his hands as he spoke.

Box held the chair for a few seconds longer before placing it on the floor in defeat.

“Just make it quick!” The shorter man sat down and held his arm out.”

“It’ll only take a second.”

When PV gently held Box’s arm, the latter tightly shut his eyes and turned away. First he injected the anti-venom, then he drew Boxman’s blood. And just like that it was done.

“There, that wasn’t so bad.”

“Wait, it’s over already?”

“Yup.” He took the tray and began putting the supplies and samples away.

“Oh. Sweet! Now we can work on the baby!” He was stopped by PV’s outstretched arm

“Wait. We should probably wait a bit to make sure your body handles the anti-venom alright.”

“There’s a possibility my body won’t handle it well?!”

“Yes.” 

Something started to change in Box’s facial expression so PV quickly explained himself. 

“You won’t die or anything,” He started, “you’ll probably just get really loopy and at worst you might get nauseous and I might have to drive you home.”

Boxman replied sarcastically, “Oh yeah, because that totally sounds like a fun time that I completely consented to!” 

Box waved his arms around in annoyance.

“Geez, I’m sorry for being blessed with the deadly venom and sharp teeth I totally asked to have when I got in that lab accident.” Venomous retorted.

“Oh, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine, let’s just watch a movie. If you feel fine afterwards we can get back to work. How’s Lord of the Loot sound?”

Boxman gasped, “You have Lord of the Loot? I’ve never seen it before, but there’s a hot elf on the cover!”

The pair of villain’s left the lab and entered the living room.

“Wait, Armolas? You do realize that’s a man right?”

Box already seemed to be somewhat loopy. “Yeeeaaaah, he’s real pretty.” His movements were unsteady and he was getting giggly.

“Box, are you okay?”

“Evrything'sh spinning.”

“Oh…”

He didn’t want Box to panic, but Box was definitely going to have a bad time.

“Maybe we should just skip the movie-”

“NOOOOO! You prromisht! I… I… whhy won chu... let me wabsh the hot elff!” His voice was slurred and quivering. Next thing PV knew, Box was sobbing into his shirt.

“Okay, Okay. Calm down Box, we’ll watch the movie.”

PV helped Box to the love seat and started the movie. Immediately after sitting down, Box wrapped his arms around PV. He was also very loud and distracting.

“WOAH!”

“The movie hasn’t even started yet.”

“But it’s craaaazy! L-look it… Look it how the thingy-”

“Shhhh. Box, I know.”

Box snuggled up to PV, shoving his head on Venomous’s chest. PV very much wanted to push him off; to tell the shorter man “no”. However, another part of him welcomed the warmth and the attention. The lonelier and reptilian side of him won out in the end. The warmth from Box felt very nice, especially since PV’s cooler blood wasn't offering his body much warmth. It didn’t exactly help that PV hadn’t had another adult human being hold him like this in a long time. He had options, oh boy did PV have options, but he knew that many of them only really cared about his money. The remaining options only seemed to care about his body and didn’t seem interested in anything serious. Box probably wasn’t any different, but at least he wasn’t so obviously disgusting about it. Besides, the shorter man seemed kind of lonely himself despite being a genuinely interesting person. He still didn’t know everything about the cyborg, but he wanted to.

Box started talking again, “PV, why’re you so colbd?”

“Because I’m partially reptilian.”

Box giggled a little. “Pfft. Silly Venny, people ain’t reptilesh. Ya’ know wut I think? I think yer dead.”

“Legally, yes.”

“Wait, yer a zombie? WHOA. I knew it!” He flung his arms around with wild abandonment.

“No, no. Ow! Wha-eh! Boxman, Sit down!” He pushed the shorter man back down into his seat.

“Oh, I’m so sowwy.” He snuggled back up to PV.

The taller man sighed and wrapped his arm around Box.

“Please don’t talk like that, it’s weird.”

“Uwu!”

“No, seriously stop.”

“Fffffffine.” He giggled some more.

“Hey Boss?” Fink came into the room unexpectedly.

“Uh, Fink!” He hastily tossed the loopy man off of him.

Box yelped, but he didn’t seem to be seriously hurt or anything.

“What is it?” PV asked.

Fink gave him a stink eye for a few seconds before responding.

“I’m hungry, when’re we gonna eat?”

“Hold on, I’ll make you a sandwich.”

He got up and walked to the kitchen. There was a little resistance from Box as he got up, but it was pretty weak and useless. In this household, men make the sandwiches. Mostly because PV was the only adult present and Fink couldn’t reach the bread, otherwise she could make her own sandwiches while PV made his own as well. That's called gender equality, bitch. As he gathered the supplies for her sandwich, she piped up.

“Why are you lettin’ Boxbutt lean on ya like that?”

“Remember that time I gave you a shot and you got loopy?”

“Oooooh, you gave him the funny shot too?”

PV hummed in response and handed Fink the sandwich.

She laughed a little before grabbing her sandwich in her mouth and sprinting away on all fours. It was entertaining whenever she did that, but PV wanted to make sure Box was still doing alright. He had left the movie on before he left to make sure Box was still comfortable while PV was gone. Based on Box’s reaction so far, they probably weren’t going to get any work done today.

“How are you doing buddy?”

“The wallsh r shpinnin.”

“Alright, you want something to eat?”

“Yeah.” He stared dead ahead.

“I’ll be back with some bread.”

PV gave an entire loaf of bread to Box and the shorter man was clearly starving. The man proceeded to totally annihilate that loaf, it was genuinely terrifying! Like seriously, the shorter man clawed through the plastic with his chicken talon like a wild animal! Holy shit, he destroyed it. Once Box was done eating, he curled up against PV and whimpered a little before going to sleep. PV put an arm around him. The movie was ending now, so PV put on a spy movie. He yawned again. Part of the way through the movie, PV’s body began to feel heavy. He managed to keep his eyes open for a while, but exhaustion won the war eventually. The next thing PV knew, everything in the room was dark and Box was shifting and whining next to him.

“What’s up, Box?” He asked dreamily as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“I think I’m gonna throw up.” Box whimpered.

PV froze for a second. He still didn’t have that other bathroom fixed, so he was going to have to take him through his bedroom. Again.

“Come on, you’re not throwing up on my floors!”

He attempted to pick up the shorter man, but that wasn’t going to work. His arms were too weak. Instead, he hurried Box along into his private bathroom and tripped on a few things on the way there. He flung the door open and tossed Box inside with all the strength he could muster. As the bread exited Box’s system, PV held the smaller man’s wild hair back. He patted his friend on the back reassuringly.

“You done-” PV was immediately interrupted by more vomiting, “Okay, not yet.”

Once it seemed like everything left Box’s system, the two villains waited in silence for a while. The distant sounds of crickets chirping filled the silence. PV could also swear he heard the sounds of some videos game in a nearby room...way past Fink’s bed time.

PV broke the silence, “Are you going to be fine on your own for a second?”

Box groaned weakly in response.

“I’ll be back soon.”

PV quietly exited the bathroom and made his way to Fink’s room. He opened the door a little more aggressively than he intended to.

“Fink!”

Fink immediately turned the TV off hoping PV wouldn’t see it on. It didn’t work because PV isn’t stupid

“Boss! I was just, um, I was gettin’ ready for bed!” She turned off the lights and hopped into bed. “Night!”

“Good. Night, Fink.”

PV closed the door and made his way back into the bathroom. 

“Alright, I’m back.”

Box was right where PV left him. PV wet a washcloth at the sink and handed it to Box so he could wipe his own face off. As much as PV cared and was genuinely concerned about Boxman, there was no way he was touching his gross throw up face. Once Box was done, PV tossed the washcloth into the laundry basket and helped Box outside. It took a while, but the pair eventually made it to the garage and PV gently helped Box get seated in his convertible. The drive to Boxmore was quiet, and dark. The weather was calm and tempted PV to open the top of the convertible up. He longed to feel the calm, night wind in his hair as he drove. One look at the sleeping man next to him told him not to. When PV arrived at his destination, he wanted to let the other man sleep a little longer. He took a look at his watch; 12:53. PV reluctantly roused Box from his sleep and helped him to the door. He was worried he’d have to take the shorter man all the way to his room, but an Ernesto was there waiting for his master’s return. Confident that Box was safe, he began the journey home. Tomorrow was a big day.


	20. Ow the Edge Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV remembers his past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo guys! I'll be posting more chapters soon, I just gotta edit them real quick! Since I hit 100 on Twitter and Ok KO is trending again, I might be posting the entire rest of the part today. I'll make any further updates later if necessary.

_ Today was special. _

Today was a memorable day.

Today was the day PV lost his powers.

Today was the day he became a villain.

Today was, well, today.

It was now Wednesday. PV liked Weednesdays because somewhere off in the distance he could just tell some poor soul with dyslexia was really struggling to spell out the word. Who could blame them though, Weeednesday’s a very difficult word to spell. But this Weeeednesday was different; PV didn’t like this Weeeeednesday at all. The clouds cried for PV today because he forgot how to cry himself sometime in his childhood. This Weeeeeednesday always seemed to get longer every time he thought about it.

Since today was the anniversary of the day PV lost his powers, he was taking a day off work. None of the other villains knew why he chose not to work this day, but they were definitely aware of how much more unhappy and stressed he always seemed. PV laid in bed for a while and stared blankly at the ceiling. It was only a matter of time before Fink showed up. He would give her cake to keep her quiet, and pretend like it was his birthday. He didn’t want her to see him so useless and sad. He didn’t want anyone to see him this way. Unfortunately, Fink was becoming acutely aware that something was not quite right about PV every year on his “birthday” too. There was only so long he could hide the truth from her. 

He didn’t even want to remember this day, but how could he not? Every time he looked in the mirror, it was just some weird purple stranger looking back at him. That stranger was the epitome of all PV’s failures in life. His failed relationships, his failed attempts to make himself stronger, his failed attempt to hide the evidence, his failed attempts to get back what he lost, his failed attempts to stay somewhat moral, and his failed attempts to let go of that very same morality. PV sighed and got up from bed. He needed to make sure he wasn’t suspicious; he had to hide his feelings. He had to hide everything. He used to be pretty bad at that, but he learned as he grew up. As he looked through his wardrobe for something suitably expensive enough to fill and cover the hole where his heart was, he contemplated his life.

PV always thought about everything that happened in his life up to this point. As he replaced his pajamas with his usual outfit, he wondered if there ever really was a time that he was truly himself. Has it all been an act this whole time? Yes. No. No, there was a time he was more open. Such a dumb, and niave time. He slithered into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The face he saw was not his; he had a natural, human skin tone. His hair wasn’t supposed to be quite this long or messy either. This strange face staring back at him, however, was purple and his ebony hair was grazing his shoulders. That strange man in the mirror didn’t affect Laser Blast as much as it did previous years. In fact, most days, he didn’t affect Laser Blast at all any more. It had been 6-11 years since he saw himself in a mirror, so he usually just accepted the purple stranger’s presence as his own. It didn’t matter anymore anyway since he could no longer remember his own name. He stole this man’s name, so it was only right that he accepted his presence. As hard as he tried though, he couldn’t bear his presence today. As he masked his sadness with makeup, the sky cried harder. The sound of the sky’s tears hitting PV’s lair silently crept around every corner. He knew it would only be a matter of time before Fink woke up now.

As he stared into the unrecognisable face staring back at him, making sure he looked decent, he remembered things. It was as if the man in the mirror dragged him into his hellish nightmare realm. The man showed him things he wished he could forget. PV was shown an image of his parents' last moments. All he could really remember was a vague idea of what happened; explosions, fire, people yelling, and a hero. He believed it was a lab accident, but he could have just made that up. 

He exited the bathroom and sat on the bed. After a few moments, something suddenly possessed him to open the second drawer of his nightstand. As he reached for the little box inside, his hands trembled a bit. After a brief moment, he swiftly snatched the little box up and glared at it. He tore the lid off and flung the contents across the room. He wrenched the top drawer open so hard, he almost knocked the nightstand over. He dug through the contents until he found what he was looking for; a little blue lighter. He violently grabbed the first picture he found, and lit the lighter.

“Burn, bitch…” PV whispered.

Then he realised what he was doing. He swiftly put the lighter out and rushed into the bathroom. He drowned the little polaroid in the sink’s water until the fire was completely gone. He assessed the damage; the top right edges were horribly singed, but the main image was otherwise fine. PV sighed, this image was one of the rare images of him and his orphanage friends and family. They were all together, smiling so brightly. He missed those days. He wasn’t popular at first. In fact, many people hated him during his first few years there. He couldn’t really control his powers too well either, so that didn’t exactly help anything. The other children, and even the adults feared his power. Eventually though, he taught himself to be more likeable. Popular, even. He just had to act the right way, and say the right things at the right times and to the right people. He learned what people liked, he learned what people hated, he learned how different people spoke, and he learned how different people acted. Most importantly, he learned how he could use people to his advantage. He could get just about anything he wanted. Fond memories of how he had become very adept at these games of manipulation filled his head as he gazed at the burnt image. But alas, he was eventually adopted into a new family. 

PV returned to the bedroom and began picking up the scattered pictures and returning them to the box. One of the images he found was of his adopted family during Christmas. There was a bit of the image missing after it was burned off, but he could still makeout what was going on pretty well. He stared fondly at the happy little family in the image. The little boy was grinning ear to ear, and holding up a massive action figure of some hero who’s name had left PV’s mind decades ago. His mother and father were very pleased too, at least that’s what it looked like considering most of their faces were gone. Everything was perfect; his life was great and he could have just about anything. But then, a dark thought crossed PV’s mind. There was only one thing he could never get; power. He had to steal powers to get powers, so he could never truly do anything with his own power. Everyone wanted to be a famous hero, but the power to steal people’s powers was not very marketable or heroic. If anything, it was quite villainous. 

PV found a couple images from his teen years; they wreaked of insecurity and fakeness. Other teens could shoot fireballs, freeze people, or even control the light or shadows. Some could fly, some could breathe underwater, and others could shapeshift. Hell, super strength would be significantly better despite being a simple one trick pony of a power. His power could never be his own, though. He believed he was around 16 when he started finding ways to compensate for his useless powers. He started by working out. If his enemies were already physically weaker, he wouldn’t even need his powers. As his muscles grew, so did his mind. He grew into a very intelligent and strong young man, and his peers noticed. His next step in compensation was to build a likeable persona. His muscles and brains would only attract the crowds, but they would grow bored of these things in due time. Charisma was necessary if he wanted to keep them around. Thankfully, PV was very good at playing these games. He developed a cool and charismatic yet also mysterious persona. The mystery and intrigue helped draw his peers in and the charisma kept them around. His peers began to look to him for guidance and protection. PV also became a major teen heart throb. 

One of the pictures of his teen years was of him in a leather jacket and leaning on his motorcycle with his friends, one of which was Cosma and the other was a guy he secretly crushed on for a few years. Damn, that man was cool. People hated him, but he didn’t care. He did whatever he wanted and it didn’t matter what others had to say about it. He blew things up, set them on fire, got into violent fights. The only problem was that the world then was very different from the world today. Back than, it was less acceptable to be gay. Sure he found women very attractive and all, but he very much preferred men. If his peers found out, he would be disgraced. So he hid that side of him. Instead, PV made himself appear to be extra straight. No one could claim he was gay if he had relations with every woman in town. It also kind of helped that the crimes he committed to impress his crush drew the attention of every bad guy loving girl in town. Of course, not every girl was into him. In fact, most girls honestly didn’t care as much as people thought they did. Believe it or not, most women don’t actually like bad boys, some people just want to find reasons to be sexist and blame women for their own shortcomings. 

As much as PV enjoyed wreaking havoc with the man he loved and his best friend, he struggled alone on the inside. He was terrified of what would happen if his peers found out that he liked not only women, but men too. He was terrified of what would happen if they suddenly realized what his powers were really like. What they could really do. Who would be by his side once it became obvious that he was a fraud and a liar who needed other people to do anything? 

PV put the last image back in the box and stored it safely away in the second drawer. The last picture was practically impossible to decipher due to how badly it was burned, but it appeared to be a picture of senior prom with Cosma. He sat on his bed for a moment, thinking about it all.

“Happy birthday Boss!”

The time to dwell on the past had ended.

“Morning, Fink.” He ruffled her hair as he left his room.

“You okay Boss?”

There must have been something about the tone of his voice that she picked up on.

“I’m fine, I just stayed up a little late.”

“Are ya sure? You always-”

“How about we have cake for breakfast today.”

Fink gasped, “Oh boy, oh boy! Last one there’s gotta fix the toilet!” She dashed off towards the kitchen on all fours.

PV chuckled a bit as he watched her skitter out of the room. He always loved it when she did that. That bathroom was still broken though. PV really should have just called someone already, but he was too busy. At least Fink was sufficiently distracted now though.

“I’m not fixing that toilet.” PV called back as he slowly made his way to the kitchen. 


	21. Ok Fink! Let's Bake a Cake!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They celebrate PV's "birthday" by baking a cake together, and the author writes a couple actual, semi-decent summaries for once.

_ Upon arrival, Fink was practically vibrating with excitement. _

He pulled out various ingredients including baking soda, sugar, and buttermilk. Fink pulled out a recipe she found online. It was very obvious that she just searched “red velvet cake recipe” on Goggle and tapped the first entry. It was by some person named Sally or whatever; Fink never looked into it too much. Neither did the author evidently. After getting everything out, PV handed a cute little pink apron off to Fink and began tying another, appropriately sized one on himself.

“All right, let's get started. Fink, how about you start the oven while I grease the pans.”

“Yes Boss!”

Upon reading the instructions, PV was told he was supposed to also put some greased up parchment paper in the pans too. He didn’t care though, he could just pull the cake out himself or eat it out of the pan if he wanted to. Parchment paper was for the weak.

“Done!”

“All right, now I want you to pour 3 cups of flour in this bowl while I add the other dry ingredients.”

“Yes Boss!” She saluted before grabbing her step stool in order to properly reach the bag of flour and bowl.

As she did her part, PV added a teaspoon of baking soda, two tablespoons of cocoa powder, and a half a teaspoon of salt.

“Here, how about you whisk these ingredients?” PV handed a whisk to the rat girl.

“...W-wix?” She stared up at him with confusion in her eyes.

“Just, mix them together with this thing.”

“Ooooooooh! Cool!” She whisked the ingredients together with wild abandonment and laughed.

Things were going well so far, and they were following the recipe nearly perfectly. And then Fink poured the whole pack of sugar in the bowl he was getting ready to mix using his hand mixer.

“Fink…”

“But it tastes good!” Fink looked at him like he was crazy.

PV sighed and attempted to shovel some of the sugar out, but a lot of it had already touched the melting butter. He gave up rather quickly and resigned himself to his fate. He began mixing the excessive amount of sugar with the mixer. When he finished mixing, he scraped the sides down with a rubber spatula. He flicked his serpentine tongue out for a second to get a taste. He grimaced slightly and hummed a little to himself.

_ This tastes like shit already... _

“Can I have a taste?”

“No.”

“Pleeeeeeaaaaase!”

PV sighed, “Fine.” He handed the spatula over to Fink.

The young rat licked a generous helping off the spatula before suddenly spitting it all over PV. She stuck her tongue out in disgust and gagged dramatically. 

“Eww! It tastes icky!”

“I know. Now can you hand me the eggs?”

“Fine.”

PV poured a cup of canola oil into the sugar/butter mixture before cracking four eggs and plopping them in.

“Wait, arn’cha s’posed ta separate the whites and yolks?”

“Uhhh…” He was supposed to separate the whites and yolks. “You know, I’m not sure why that really matters. It’s getting baked into the cake either way.”

“I think it matters, Boss.”

“Oh… Oh well, it’ll probably be fine.”

PV added in the vanilla extract and white vinegar before beating the mixture further.

“Can I try?”

“Sure, just be careful.” 

PV handed the hand mixer off to his minion, but kept one hand on it to make sure she kept it stable.

“Oops!” She spilled a little bit of the batter and it sprayed onto both the villains.

“It’s no big deal, just a small spill.”

Fink eventually seemed to be getting the hang of it, so PV decided to let go and add the dry ingredients.

“All right, lower the speed of the mixer for me.”

“Yes Boss!”

PV slowly poured the ingredients in along with some milk and food coloring.

“I think that’s enough mixing now.”

Fink turned off the hand mixer and PV folded the batter.

“Something looks off…” Fink commented looking down at her phone.

“Looks fine to me.”

“No, look.”

Sure enough, the batter was certainly off. PV didn’t quite know how though. It probably had something to do with the sugar or the egg whites. No, scratch that, it was almost certainly both the sugar and the egg whites.

“Eh, it’ll probably be fine.”

He divided the batter evenly between cake pans and placed them both in the oven.

“There, on to the frosting!”

The frosting didn’t take too long to make, and shockingly, nothing really went wrong. Well, except that Fink ended up eating half the ingredients on the way. Thankfully, PV had plenty of spares of everything.

“Mmm!”

PV gave Fink a taste of the frosting after he finished it. He must’ve done an okay job on it, since it actually looked the way it was supposed to. It also didn’t taste too bad either. There was still quite a bit of time before the cake finished, so the pair decided to sit down for a bit while it finished baking. PV suddenly realized he should have just bought a cake pre-made instead of making it himself, since that gave Fink time to question him if she wanted to.

“Oh hey Boss, I got you a present!” She grabbed his hand and began dragging him away, “Cover your eyes!”

“Okay.” He covered his eyes with his free hand and Fink giggled.

He could feel her taking him somewhere, and he was tempted to peek. He didn’t want Fink to be upset with him though, so he refrained from uncovering his eyes.

**_Thump!_ **

“Sorry Boss!”

He ran into a wall apparently. On the way to whatever their definition was, he ran into a couple of end tables, a few more walls and corners, what he could only assume was now a broken lamp based on the way it felt and the shattering sound that followed after he bumped it, and several other things. Fink kept taking him around different turns in the house until they got to what PV could only guess was the door to what he believed to be his office.

“Open your eyes!”

PV did as he asked only to find that he was definitely not at his office. Instead, he was in front of the bathroom, fully repaired. Well, kind of repaired. It definitely wasn’t perfect, but it looked like everything could kind of function. 

“Oh wow.”

“I fixed it all up for ya!”

There was still a bit of a mess from the time Fink crawled out of the sewers through the toilet and accidentally blew everything up. She was fighting a hero from the sewers or something, or at least that’s what Fink said anyway. PV was willing to believe her because of the hero tied up next to her at the time. He was so proud that she took his “how to properly tie someone up” lessons to heart and gave her icecream. That was about three months ago. Yes, he was that busy. Or maybe he was actually just lazy; he wasn’t really sure any more.

“Great work! I’m so proud of you.” 

He crouched down to Fink’s level and ruffled her hair. She giggled and gave him a big hug. He hugged her back.

“Happy birthday Boss!”

“Thank you so much, Fink.”

After a short child/guardian moment, they went back to the kitchen to check on the cake. PV stuck a toothpick in, and it was covered in batter.

“I think ya did somethin’ wrong Boss.”

“Nah, it probably just needs to cook a little longer.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, pretty sure.”

“So, what now?”

“I guess we just wait for it to finish baking. How about we eat something else while we wait?”

“Awww, but you promised me cake for breakfast!”

“Well, I didn’t expect it to take so long.” PV checked his watch, “It’s past lunch. What do you want?”

“Cake.”

“I just said it’s not ready yet.”

“Well, buy another one!”

“No, there’s only two of us; we don’t need any more cakes.”

“Fine, let’s get pizza then!”

“Alright.”

“Yay!” Fink ran off into the living room, “Imma play my videos game!”

“No, you’re going to practice your scales today. You’ve been neglecting that piano for too long, little missy.”

“No promises!”

She was gone before he could retort. PV pulled out his phone, only to see he had 5 new messages. The first was from Cosma:

~I hope you feel well enough to work tomorrow, we need a progress report asap.

I think I’m getting pretty close to a breakthrough.~

Then there was one from Billiam:

~If you're feeling down you can come over for a visit sometime, I don’t mind.

He was clearly flirting, but he wasn’t about to acknowledge that.

No thank you, I’m fine.~

The next message was from Vormulax:

~Stop being sad.

He honestly didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just moved on to Box’s message:

~Happy Birthday! I wish you told me, because I feel a little bad I didn’t get you anything!

Apparently Fink must have told him at some point. His lies were now spreading, but he didn’t feel like dealing with it at the moment.

Thank you. You don’t have to worry about getting me

anything though.~

There was one more message though. It was from an unknown number. A chill ran down his spine as he read the three words written down.

~You owe me


	22. Ow the Edge Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fink and PV have a little talk over pizza and cake.

_ All he could hear was the pitter patter of the sky’s tears as he was shocked into complete silence. _

He knew who it was; there was only one woman who sent this message on this day every year. That accursed imp was going to be the end of him. He shook off the shock and called the pizza place; a bit of food in his stomach might help him keep his mind off of  _ her _ for a bit. He made sure to order both Hawaiian and pepperoni pizza since Fink really didn’t like pineapples on pizza. She called it “Sacrilege” and “An affront to both nature and man”. PV wished he could get her to say such big words in any other context since he actually kind of liked Hawaiian pizza. Not to mention the fact that she manages to get such big words out flawlessly despite her speech impediment, but only in the presence of Hawaiian pizza. 

_ Maybe we should try homeschooling. _

He tried sending her to private schools a few times, but he found himself kind of needing her in the lab. She also kind of got expelled from so many private schools that not even the trashiest nearby public schools would take her any more. Yes, Fink needed an education. PV was going to try homeschooling as soon as the next school year started. Before entering the living room, he checked the cake one more time.

_ Nope. Still runny. _

Fink was playing her videos game, despite being told to practice.

“Boss! I was, um- I was just-”

PV sighed and interrupted her calmly, “Come on, let’s practice while we wait.”

“Shoot.”

They sat down and practiced. PV gently corrected Fink each time she messed up. Eventually, she kept fidgeting and trying to get away, so he let her go. She was getting better, but PV was a little frustrated that Fink wasn’t taking this too seriously. He sighed to himself as she ran off to get the pizza that just arrived. For some reason, he spent a lot of time sighing in his daily life. A part of him wanted to play something on the piano to drown out his negative feelings, but he was also kind of hungry. He missed the Fink that used to listen to him play and beg to learn. She used to be so impressed by his musical skills; the sparkles in her eyes gave him life. Now, she was slipping away from him. Fink was growing up fast, a little too fast. Very soon, she would be a pubescent teenage girl. He would have to deal with high emotions, romantic partners, loud music, talking back, and… He shivered.  _ That time. _ That time when she’s all grown up and leaves him, that is. He was not ready for that in the slightest. But most of all, PV was scared Fink would hate him if he ever told her the truth about today.

“Here ya go Boss! Ya took too long, so I put your gross pizza on a plate for you!”

“It is not gross.”

“Is too! Pineapples don’t belong on pizza, it’s an abomination!”

“Is not” He bit into his pizza.

“Is too! It’s sacrilege!”

“Whatever.”

“Oh, yeah. There was this dumb noob ‘n my game earlier!” She started tearing into her pizza like a wild animal.

“You know I don’t understand gaming slang.”

“Thash ‘caushe yer old.” She spoke with a somewhat full mouth.

PV’s mouth was also full, so he just growled in response.

She swallowed before speaking further, “Anyway, I told ’im lava was red water. And then- and then he-” She broke into laughter before she could finish, “HE JUMPED IN’N DIED!”

The room was filled with Fink’s boisterous laughter. PV chuckled a little.

“Did you get any good loot?”

“Pfft, no! He had a stupid di-uh- di-a-monde shovel. What the heck am I supposed to do with that? I can’t believe ‘e was smart enough ta find a diay-di-mon-”

“Diamond?”

“No, that’s not how ya spell diemin! It’s some dumb game thing, ‘cus it’s spelled waaay wrong. Anyway-”

“If it’s d-i-a-m-o-n-d then that’s how you spell diamond.”

“Wait really?”

“Yes.” 

“Oh... Anyway, I can’t believe ‘e was smart enough ta find a diamond, but dumb enough ta make it into a shovel an’ jump in lava!”

“Yeah, that sounds pretty dumb.”

“You bet! He even had the noob skin!”

“Wait, skin?”

“It prolly doesn’t mean what’cha think it means.”

PV simply hummed in response. He was just about done with his pizza when he realized the cake might finally be ready. It had been about an hour now and the cake was supposed to be done half an hour ago. He got up and started heading into the kitchen.

“Where ya goin’ Boss?”

“It should be done by now…”

It. Was. A. Disaster. The cake was practically unrecognizable. It looked nothing like the picture.

_ It’ll probably be fine. It probably just needs the frosting. Yeah, that’s it. _

The cake was somehow dry and soggy at the same time. Hell, PV wasn’t even sure he could reasonably consider it a cake anymore.

_ Everything will be fine. _

Everything was not fine. The cake suddenly burst into flames. Thankfully, PV had some water nearby and put it out. The outside of the cake was already burnt, but at least now the inside was probably fully cooked. Probably. He left the cake out to cool for a bit, then returned to the dining room.

“Cake’s done baking, but we have to wait for it to cool before-”

“Boss, why’re ya always so sad?” Fink suddenly interrupted him.

“Excuse me? I’m perfectly fine.” He gave an unconvincing chuckle.

“No, you ain’t!”

_ Shit. _

His eternal poker face was starting to involuntarily fade away. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, I’m just a little worn out-”

“Yer lyin’! I ain’t that dumb!”

“It’s nothing.” 

PV tried to power walk away. He hoped his longer leg span would allow him to get away swiftly. Unfortunately, he didn’t count on Fink’s persistence.

“It ain’t nothin’, yer upset! An’ it makes me upset too!”

_ Am I really so pathetic I’m about to get lectured by a child? _

His voice was practically a whisper now, “Fink, please. I really don’t want to talk-”

“But ya have to! Yer always tellin’ me ta tell you if somethin’s botherin’ me, so now ya gotta tell me what’s botherin’ you!”

She had him there. There was no getting out of it, he had to be honest with her.

“Fink, I…” He sighed for the thousandth time today. “Let’s sit down and talk about this.”

As soon as Fink was seated comfortably across from PV, he began his tale.

“Today isn’t my birthday.”

“What da ya mean, Boss?”

“I lied.”

“Well, duh.”

“I-uh... didn’t always look like this,” He looked away and nervously grabbed his other arm. “...and I wasn’t always a villain either.”

She gasped as if she suddenly understood. “Did you have a boss too?”

“Not exactly. What I meant to say is… um…” He looked at the young villain’s sparkling eyes. “I used to be a hero.”

***************************************************

_ It was raining. _

Laserblast was dry though. He was conducting one of his usual secret experiments in his hidden lab. He knew his teammates wouldn’t support what he was doing, especially Sparks. She would never understand, and none of the other members of P.O.I.N.T. would either. He had to keep this a secret. He looked up at the clock; 12:12. He had lost track of time.

_ I have to get back before the others notice. _

He quickly deposited his lab coat and grabbed his helmet. In his rush to leave, he must have accidentally forgotten to hide the lab. As he left the donut shop fronting for his lab, he slowed down. It would look suspicious if he left a building running, so he walked the rest of the way to his vehicle. He drove back to P.O.I.N.T. H.Q. confident that he was getting close to a breakthrough. Soon, he would be the most powerful man alive. Things were good. 

Laser made it back just a few seconds before Sparks did. She was slightly darker than Laser and had long, blond hair. She was wearing a silver one piece, purple knee and elbow pads (safety first!), and some white heeled boots. To this day, he swears he didn’t steal the idea of white heeled boots from her.

“Laser!”

The couple kissed before sitting down to eat a giant lollipop. Lollipops had consumed Laser’s entire diet, because why not? Those were different times, and people weren’t as aware of how dangerous a lollipop addiction could be. It also didn’t help that laser was a popular hero and made lollipops look good. Don’t do lollipops, kids. There are much better ways to deal with stress, and lollipops can lead to long term negative health effects such as cavities. Now the reader knows, and knowing is half the battle.

“Oh Laser, I want to spend the rest of my life like this.” Sparks laid her hand on Laser’s hand.

“Me too.” Laser lied before taking hold of Sparks’s hand.

The couple leaned over the table and closed their eyes. As their lips touched-

************************************************

“EW! That’s disgusting!” Fink suddenly shouted, “Nyeh!” She stuck her tongue out and pointed down her throat.

“Please don’t interrupt, Fink.” Venomous responded.

“Well I’m sooooorrry, but I don’t wanna hear about my Boss kissin’ a stinkin’ hero!”

“Well, I was a different person then and that’s what happened.”

“It’s still gross!” Fink crossed her arms.

“Would it make you feel better if I skipped the kissing parts?”

“Yeah...”

“Alright,” PV cleared his throat, “Where was I… Ah!”

***********************************************

Foxtail suddenly burst through the doors to the cafeteria. She, of course, had a foxtail and her short hair was colored and shaped similarly. She was a very big, strong, and darker skinned woman in an orange wrestler’s get up and a blue cape. She also had a large white belt with an ‘F’ on it because heroes were just as narcissistic as villains apparently. Since everyone in this universe is obsessed with white boots, she had those too. “Emergency meeting! Greyman's Back! Group up in the main hall!”


	23. Ow the Edge Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV's backstory is the razorblade he uses to shave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is hella late! I've been pretty busy with school lately. Art school is very difficult, stressful, and time consuming. My storyboarding classes are always fun though, which is good considering that's what I'm majoring in animation for. As a side note, once the epilogue for this part is up, there might be a month or two before the next update since I only have the first half of part 2 done at the moment. Despite how much time goes into schooling, I will still continue to work on this since it's entire purpose is to give me something other than drawing to do creatively for once. Very sorry for the disappearance though!

_ Whatever happened was clearly important if it was an emergency meeting.  _

That, and Greyman was back early. Usually, he was out for a good four to five hours. It had only been about two. Sparks and Laser sprinted after Foxtail and the others, and they talked as they did so.

“I thought he just went off shopping under the guise of it being some ‘Important mission’ again.” Laser made air quotes to emphasise Greyman’s shopping tendencies.

“Wait, again?” Sparks asked quizzically.

“Yeah, have you really not noticed?”

“No.”

“He usually gets distracted and buys himself a bunch of stuff. His room is just full of novelty fedoras.”

“Wait really?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it.” He chuckled a little as they entered the room.

The 5 teammates gathered in front of their last colleague; a grey alien with a blue fedora, purple scarf, and blue shoes with socks of a lighter tint. For some reason, Laser found himself frequently associating with people who decided they didn’t need to wear pants. Laws be damned, this was Doctor Greyman.

“Hello, there!” Greyman began, “Bet you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here so soon. Well, I discovered a lab belonging to an unknown villain!” He opened a briefcase and used his telekinesis to levitate three familiar balls.   
_ Shit, my experiments! _

Laser tensed up; it took everything in his power to keep up his poker face. Laser thanked Cob for the visor on his helmet covering his eyes. Silver and Elbow gasped, hopefully keeping the attention off himself as he started sweating.

_ Wait a second, I think I can fix this… _

“They don’t look like much.” He tried to downplay his experiments.

“Just allow me to demonstrate. Stand back!”

Greyman showed the blue ball, “This one, when exploded generates a black hole!”

As per expected, the ball turned into a black hole. At least as a silver lining, Laser was getting to see his experiments in action… sort of… All of his colleagues gasped.

“This one,” Greyman used the green ball to shrink a statue. “Shrinks a target to subatomic levels!” 

The magnifying glass the grey alien pulled out showed that assessment was correct. Looks like all of Laser’s experiments were a success. However, Laser couldn’t help but be worried about how long Greyman must’ve spent in that lab if he knew this much about each of his balls. There were pictures of his face all over that lab too, but thankfully none of them were nude pictures so Greyman didn’t know about those balls. How could Greyman not know who was responsible at this point? Greyman lifted up the red ball, drawing Laser out of his paranoia.

“And this one, this one here? I don’t know! I was hoping with your input,” Greyman slowly brought the ball down to his hands, “we could figure out what this little guy-”

Upon touching his hands, the ball exploded.

“Doc!” Foxtail and Laser yelled in unison.

Greyman coughed.

“Doc, are you all right?” Laser prodded as he crouched next to Greyman.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” The alien responded from his place on the floor.

“Oh, he’s okay.” Silver piped in.

“Goodness.” Said Elbow, another colleague of Laser’s. 

The author had hit her “describe characters and new locations” limit and the reader should already know who the Hell Elbow is. Thus, she would not describe Elbow or Rippy Roo. There was nothing anyone could say to change her mind.

Laser knew Greyman wouldn’t be okay. Sure, he’d be okay on the outside, but his powers were toast. As he watched Greyman desperately try to levitate his hat back on his head, Laser smiled. Thankfully, none of his colleagues noticed. He didn’t care that Greyman would never be a hero again, all he cared about now was the fact that his experiments were a success. Greyman said something that prompted a gasp from the other heroes, wiping the smile clean off his face. He suddenly realized his research was in grave danger.

Sparks spoke up first, “How is that possible?”

Elbow made some nervous noise.

“Hey, don’t worry Doctor. It’s probably temporary.”

Laser had to speak up now, before the others got in his way. “Guess they were stronger than they looked. What do you say we snag a few more before they fall into the wrong hands? We could even use them against our foes-”

“Absolutely not!” I wouldn’t wish this fate on our worst enemies! What we need to do is find the rest and disarm them completely! We can’t have this happen again!” Foxtail opposed.

_ Damn you Foxtail and your moral code. _

He had one last idea, and if this failed too, they would find out. He no longer cared as much about salvaging his research as he did slavaging his reputation. There was too much evidence there, but there was still a small chance his research could be salvaged.

“Yeah, good point. I’ll go in.”

“I’ll go with you, as backup.” Sparks suddenly declared.

_ Damn. _

“Me also go, as, uh, double backup.” Elbow stuttered.

_ Damn² _

“Rippy and I will stay back here and see what we can do about Greyman. Good luck you three!”

“Good luck to you, too!” Sparks called back.

They drove through the pouring rain. It’s as if the sky knew what was going on, and it was weeping. This research was the best chance Laser had at being something great, and now it was all getting washed away. The trio eventually arrived at their destination. He would sigh, but the author was suddenly self conscious about the amount of sighing in this fanfiction. Laser and the others left the vehicle.

“Let’s get a move on, time’s a-wasting.” Laser’s sugar cravings were starting to get bad again, so he stuck a lollipop in his mouth real quick. It was his last one too.

“All right. According to the Doc’s intel, the lab is underneath that donut shop over there.”

******************************************

PV was suddenly interrupted by Fink’s questions. “Wait, why was your lab hidden under a donut shop again?” Her big eyes pierced PV’s soul, so he had no choice but to answer.

“Because I needed a front.”

“Well I know that! I wanna know why a donut shop when it coulda been somethin’ cool, like- like an explosives shop or-or a tools store!”

“An explosives shop wouldn’t have been very low-key, Fink.” Quieter, PV added, “And also I kind of like donuts…”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, like I was saying, I managed to convince my teammates to stay behind. I had to give Sparks my last lollipop to prove I’d be back.”

“Ew, wasn’t that thing in your mouth?”

“Yep. Anyway, I went in all on my own and tried to hide the evidence.”

********************************************

Laserblast booked it to his secret lab.

“Oh, Cob! Oh Cob!” Laser mumbled to himself between pants.

As he rushed into the shop he noticed that the entrance to his lab was, in fact, wide open. Not only that, but the “closed” sign that was normally on the window was laying on the floors. After delicately placing the sign back on the window, Laser rushed into the elevator. He impatiently tapped his foot as he was stuck listening to elevator music for a few seconds, thankfully he made the music some jazzy spy music that he liked so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It felt like hours before the doors opened wide enough for him to fit his buff, spandex clad self through the doors and into the lab. Laser looked around frantically.

“There!”

Laser sprinted towards his corkboard, grabbing a few of his experiments as he went. He gently held a particularly important picture of him and Sparks at the beach, and he stared at it for a second. After taking a moment to consider his options, he burned it with a laser from his helmet. Laser also used his helmet to burn the remaining pieces of evidence, causing a small, but uncontrollable fire to begin spreading throughout the room. Laser quickly began to gather the rest of the orbs and his research notes in his arms. However, Laser dangerously overestimated how much he could carry at once. 

It all happened in a flash. One of the capsules slipped from his grasp, the sound of glass shattering was cut off by a massive explosion. 

**_BOOM!_ **

Laser was sent flying onto the ground, dropping all the remaining notes and capsules in the process. Everything hurt, and Laser wasn’t sure if the ringing was from the fire alarm or his ears. He groaned in pain as his body refused to stand, leaving him temporarily grounded. Then, Laser opened his eyes to survey the damage.

“Huh?”

When had the fire grown so large? Then Laser realized something. When Laser placed his hand on the ground to steal the power of the blaze, he was instead met with a shocking pain in his hand as his powers seemed to reject him all together. As he reacted by lifting his hand off the ground, he watched his powers fizzle away into a dull purple where his hand was, never to be seen again.

“My powers… they’re gone...”

He began to panic. He was already worthless before, but now…

**_Beep. Beep. Beep Beep BeepBeep-_ **

Laser looked over at the green ball flashing on the ground threateningly and crawled for his life to a nearby sewer pipe.

**_KABOOM!_ **

He made it to the pipe, just in time. He turned around and watched in awe from the safety of his pipe. The whole shop suddenly floated up into the sobbing sky above, shrunk down, and teleported into the weird pocket dimension he accidentally discovered through his research. He was robbed of his words, so he silently stared up at the sky with wide eyes instead.

“Laser!”

Laser was suddenly brought back to reality by his girlfriend calling to him. He began to shift his body in order to leave the pipe. 

“Laserblast! Laser? Laser…”

Something inside Laser made him stop. He watched Sparks search for him in the pit as Elbow clumsily followed her in. 

Then Sparks said something that changed the course of history forever, “He wasn’t powerful enough to survive something like this.”

The words stabbed Laser in the chest, and gouged out his heart. Those words hurt for more than any of his cuts, bruises, or broken bones. His breathing picked up. He was alone. He was weak. He was worthless. Tears began to taunt him. He looked down at his gloved hands. Nothing would ever be the same. His life was over now. What kind of teammate would he be now? Did he even want to be a teammate anymore? Now that Sparks revealed her true feelings towards him after lying for months, how could he bear to see her anymore? How could he work side by side with someone he thought he could trust, someone he loved, when he knew the way she saw him. Something deep down inside Laser snapped. No, he wouldn’t be going back. He crawled away from the dim light outside, and into the hungry maw of the darkness. He never looked back.

*********************************************

“...Long story short I hid from society, experimented on myself, and now I look like this.” He gestured towards his body. “Anyway, the cake is probably cooled off now-” PV power walked towards the kitchen in the hopes that his rushed ending would be sufficient for the curious young rat.

“But I wanna hear all the gory details!”

It was not sufficient.

“No.”

“Pweeeeeeee-”

“No.” 

He gave Fink a stern look to suggest that he was done talking about it. Something in her eyes always seemed to convince him otherwise, so he looked away after a moment of silence.

“Maybe some other time. Let’s just finish the cake for now, Ok?”

“Aww, Ok…”

He patted his minion on the head before heading into the kitchen to finish his handy work. When they finished, it looked like shit,, smelled like shit, and tasted way worse. Defeated, they went out together and PV let Fink pick out a new cake. As they ate together, the rain stopped. PV let Fink play in the puddles outside. As he watched the young child splash in the water happily, he suddenly remembered something. Something he had pushed to the back of his head for a while as he dealt with other problems; that boy he saw at Boxmore a few months ago. He didn’t want to believe it; he refused to. He looked at his phone. He had a few new messages, but he wasn’t worried about those. No, he was looking for the mystery number. He needed information. PV wanted to make sure that that kid wasn’t his son.

What do you need me to do?~


	24. Part 1 Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to wait a month or so for the author to get off her lazy butt and finish part 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for part 1! I might come back here once it's posted to Twitter and Amino to link the images here too for those of you who found me here as opposed to one of those two sites.

_ 5 days. _

That’s all she wrote. PV assumed that meant he would be told what he had to do to pay his debts in five days. Once his debts were paid, he could finally know the truth.

“Good night, Boss!”

“Night, Fink.”

PV gently planted a paternal kiss on his minion’s forehead prompting a giggle from the small rat. He closed the door behind him as he left Fink’s room. She was the first person PV had told since  _ then. _ He almost lost everything last time, but it might be okay if it was just between PV and Fink. Strangely enough, the fact that he was a hero wasn’t what made the other villain’s come after him. No, it was the fact that he had no powers that planted the target on his back. 

Since he didn’t have powers, many villains and heroes decided he would be easy pickings. It was during the first wave when he met DD. She told him she could make things disappear, but he didn’t believe her at first. It wasn’t until his lair was raided and he was forced to escape into the sewers with a serious bullet wound in his left arm, that he realized his error. He was so desperate, that he didn’t question it when DD appeared in the sewers that night. PV was far too desperate to say no; he was caught in DD’s web and let himself be devoured. He had a theory she was responsible, but there wasn’t any proof. Even if that were the case, there was nothing PV could do against her. She had power over him now; there was no escape.

PV entered his private study and sat down at his computer. He pulled out another lollipop and opened a game of solitaire. PV really needed to do something with his stress. He didn’t want to deal with DD, in fact he absolutely despised the imp. He couldn’t say that to her face though, things got messy whenever he let his true feelings slip a little too far. There was a time when she broke his wrist for disobeying him, that was certainly a painful lesson learned. He wasn’t quite sure where she summoned that power from considering her lack of muscle mass, but it was terrifying nonetheless. He placed a six of spades over a five of hearts. He could feel his desire to play dwindling. 

PV closed out of his game of solitaire and decided to extra check his sources, just to be sure. He looked up information on his old point days. Most of it was people grieving over Laser’s death and speculating over who’s fault it was. He already knew everything that happened as a result; the team took on an edgier look, the newspapers blamed it on Elbow, and the nervous man was kicked from the team. Through extra research, PV learned that Silver Spark and Rippy Roo left a little while after wards. That left Foxtail all alone until another few members were added. The most notable member being a weather based cloud hero named Sunshine. Apparently pants are optional in this universe when you could make part of your body look like a dress instead. PV also knew about the school for heroes, P.O.I.N.T. Prep, and how Elbow went on to build the plaza Box hated so much. He always had to dig a little further to find the info about Silver Spark and her son, KO. On the outside, all that could really be found were newspaper clippings speculating on whether or not Sparks was pregnant, and speculating on the identity of the boy’s father once he was born. Some were even going so far as to share more unsavory rumors involving Sparks. It was all speculative though, none of it had any actual proof outside of Spark’s relationship with Laser, something that was kept out of the public’s gaze enough for there to be reasonable doubt they were ever together to begin with, and the fact that a kid definitely existed. PV wouldn’t even be convinced she had a baby at all if it wasn’t for the info he had seen in P.O.I.N.T.’s secret info archive.

Thankfully, Foxtail and Greyman never changed the password for all their protected info on their site so that made things somewhat easier to access. Villain’s would pay him big money for this info, but he decided not to sell the password or info out of fear of the heroes finding out and searching for him. Selling the info once to an older villain was plenty enough times as is. They also never changed the URL or the passwords for some reason. The old fools knew nothing about technology which was played to PV’s advantage! -just after he got through all those popup windows!

_ Oh, wait hot villain babes want- no wait, stay focused! _

He clicked off the incredibly tempting popups. He had far more important things to do than stare at a bunch of sexy villainesses destroying the forest and eating Wonderful Bread. Besides, he wasn’t even sure how this computer was alive anymore with all the viruses on it. He always seemed to get a new one every time he clicked on the popups. Anyway, he knew just where to find the information he was looking for. Sparks had never left P.O.I.N.T., that was just a cover up. What she was doing now was using a dojo at Elbow’s plaza as a front for secret P.O.I.N.T. operations in the area. There was a tree in the sewers, because of course there was. Something something glorbs, something something keep villains out… As interesting as that was, PV was more concerned about KO so he never looked into it further.

The info never changed, Sparks was going by her civilian name, Carol, outside of P.O.I.N.T. and she had a 6-11 year old son named KO. He was believed to be Laserblast’s son, but there were never any tests done to confirm that. He was born about 8 months after Laser’s death and Sparks went on her secret mission shortly after. The timing was too perfect, but it could be wrong. There was no way to know for sure, Sparks was a liar. She lied about how she felt about Laser; about how great she thought his powers were. Who’s to say she didn’t lie about this too? Besides, there were no tests done, so who’s to say she wasn’t with someone else for a bit and got pregnant with his child? Yes, it had to be a lie. Sure there was an overwhelming amount of evidence towards the contrary, but that was definitely a lie. Yes, he wasn’t just telling that to himself to feel better about abandoning his pregnant partner and his soon to be son. Nope, his conscience was completely clear of guilt and shame. Yep. Totatally. Everything was fine, DD would tell him differently once he did enough for her to earn that information. Yep. Totally. He wasn’t nervous at all.

He looked down at his clock; 11:52 PM. This awful Weeeeeeednesday was just about done. For some reason, this Weeeeeeeednesday felt even longer than usual Weeeeeeeeednesdays did. Wait, was it just him or was this Weeeeeeeeeednesday getting longer every time he thought about it? It was probably just him, time is always the same length, just sometimes it feels longer. There was physically no way this Weeeeeeeeeednesday was getting longer. The word “Weeeeeeeeeeednesday”, however, was a completely different story. That was definitely getting longer every time he thought about this Weeeeeeeeeeednesday. The word would be reset in just a few minutes though, so he wasn’t too worried.

**_END OF PART 1_ **


	25. Part 2 Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 finally comes out after a certain someone sat her depressed ass on this for probably almost 6 months. (yes, I finished this that long ago)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, sorry for the REALLY late update! I was busy with class, then I got seriously depressed which set off my severe anxiety pretty bad and vice versa (one of my classes put HUGE emphasis on making good eye contact, proper handshakes, and looking professional, which are all very personally triggering for me as I'm incapable of doing any of those things well on account of an un-diagnosed disorder(s) I may even write some of this stuff in with Boxman as I do head cannon him as having some of the same issues I have while I've already kinda written in my panic attacks with PV) and unfortunately treatment isn't an option for me at the moment, so I had to drop my classes and rest for a couple months instead. Still not completely better, but I'm at a manageable level now and I have motivation to work again (yay)!

“You do know what a contract is right?”

Devil’s Dealer slowly made her way out of the shadows to confront quite possibly one of her most problematic signers.

“Or is it all muscles up there as well?”

“I’m not stupid, little imp.” An absolutely massive and muscular man looked down at her and practically snarled. 

He had a good 4 feet or so on her both length and width wize, but she had faced much worse odds and got out just fine. ‘Ole muscles for brains here was just another fool blessed with super strength. Pretty common superpower. Pretty easy to take down too if need be.

“Oh, no! I hit a nerve, I didn’t know you still had room for those!” She patronized. “Today’s your lucky day though! I’m feeling  _ extra  _ generous-”

“SHUT UP!” The behemoth of a man suddenly punched her across his lair. “I don’t have to listen to you!”

**_BOOM!_ **

DD nonchalantly left the small crater that formed around her and gently dusted herself off.

“How unfortunate, you’ve ruined my favorite shirt.” The shirt was barely even dirty, but the scuffs that were there would be far more trouble than she had the patience far. “Oh well I suppose, can’t be helped!” She shrugged. “But seriously though, I really don’t want to hurt you, but you’re forcing my hands.” DD made a slow and noncommittal motion with her hands and sighed while shaking her head in disappointment. She appeared to be bluffing, but the strangely demonic smile plastered on her face seemed to reveal her true intent.

“I’m not scared of you any more! I could crush you like a little bug!”

“And that’s what I was worried about.” DD began sarcastically, “You seem to have let all that power I gave you go to your stupid little head!” She tapped the uncovered side of her head to make sure the big oaf got the point; the smile on her face evolved into one of feigned innocence while keeping the demonic undertones.

“Cut the bullshit! I know what you’re trying to do!” The man roared and pointed at her accusingly.

“Oh really now?” DD flapped her little wings hard enough to fly eye level, “And what is it that I’m trying to do, hmm?”

“You’ve been manipulating me from day one! Something about that weird contract you made me sign-”

DD suddenly spat venomously, “Oh? I didn’t  _ force _ you to do anything; you signed that contract all on your own. Don’t pin your choices on me.”

The man growled and clenched his fists as DD regained her persona of ignorance. He opened his mouth to speak again but was cut off by a fake gasp of realization from DD.

“No wait, I know what this is!” The imp began slowly spinning as she flew, but kept her head upright the entire time. “Your ego is so fragile, that getting everything handed to you by someone so  _ small _ and  _ weak _ means that now you need to pummel lil’ ole me to make yourself feel better. Is that it then?” Her malicious smile only grew larger as she watched her prey turn a deep red, proving her right.

“I’M GONNA KILL YOU!” He suddenly lunged forward

“Oh really?” Her eyes widened in sarcastic surprise before landing with her arms folded behind her back.

As the big, monstrous man came hurtling in her direction, DD simply puffed out her chest and waited. Her demonic gaze stalked the raging bull of a man. The man punched the area her head should have been in, but suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. Instead, he felt something under his feet and started to fall.

“Nope,” he heard in his ear, “you’ll have to try harder than that.”

The muscle bound monster was sent hurtling forward at immense speed through the wall as a cloven foot suddenly hit him from behind. The vicious cackling behind him was the only thing that registered in his mind in that split second before-

**_CRASH!_ **

The man exploded through the wall and his broken body left a trail of destruction in his wake. He kept going until the momentum ran out, leaving him planted deeply into the wall that used to keep the outside world out of his lair . DD effortlessly walked up to the broken man and threw the serum Venomous gave her at him. He tried to get up quickly, but his body screamed at him to stop. He eventually managed to stand, but he had to use the mostly destroyed wall behind him for support.

DD’s smile was gone. Her insults were gone. There was no anger, fear, or any other notable emotion. All that was left was cold professionalism, not a hint of humanity in sight. “Even after all you’ve done today, I’m still willing to forgive you. All I ask is that-”

“YOU BITCH!” He threw a weak punch that DD effortlessly caught in one hand.

There was fear and shock in his eyes.

“Fine.” In one swift motion, DD broke the man’s arm over her knee before throwing him back on the ground.

“I’m afraid our contract is terminated, Mr. Rhino.” Her cold, emotionless eyes bore into the broken man below.

“What have you done to me?”

“What I’ve already done doesn’t matter. You should be more worried about what I’m  _ going _ to do.” She summoned the contract the broken villain had signed, “I bet you were wondering why I had you, an untrustworthy and deceitful villain, sign a contract with me.” She slowly closed the small amount of space . “In the world of villainy, legal documents would have no real use, right?” She crouched down and brought her face close enough that she could feel his shallow breath on her face as realization dawned in his eyes. “But, I find that for me personally, contracts provide power far beyond something as pitiful as the law could offer.”

The demonic smile returned to its rightful place, bigger than it ever was before.

************************************

_ An angelic tune began to play. _

DD picked up the phone.

“Hey, babe!”

…

“Yeah, work got a little messier than I anticipated.”

… 

“Yeah, I’m going to have to find another one...” She sighed, “Can’t be helped though. “How was your day?”

…

“Ah, that’s great!”

...

“Seriously? What about date night? Are you really sure?”

…

She sighed again, “I was really excited for it too... What are we going to do now?”

…

DD’s business phone dinged. She pulled it out and looked at the new text message. She smiled.

“Actually, I don’t think we’ll have to cancel after all.”

~ What do you need me to do?

She’d have to find a new villain with strength powers later, she had something more important to tend to now.


	26. The Venomous Bite of Steel and Intimidation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV finally finds a Boxmore worker who doesn't smash doors, then proceeds to pull a dumb.

“So, this goes here… and this goes… uh...”

Yet another weekend had come, and yet another instance of PV waking up in bushes randomly with no memory. Last thing he remembered was obsessively looking up information about that KO kid online again.

Box suddenly took the parts out of his hands. “Oh here, let me get that for ya! There!” Box nonchalantly tossed the dangerous pieces of saws, metal, and wire back into PV’s hands and the latter had to juggle them a bit before he properly caught the parts.

“I had it covered.”

“Yeah, sure you did!” Boxman replied sarcastically. “Oh you know what, I found this weird pterodactyl outside yesterday. It had this funny lookin’ nose and it was really colorful. I had no idea what it was, but I didn’t have time to really worry about it at the time since I had important work to do on our little Jr.!” Box puffed his chest out proudly at that statement.

“Interesting…”

_ Wait, did he just say- _

“But it was really distracting! Dumb thing kept  _ staring at me,  _ and it was weird!”

“Hmmm…”

“Took me  _ forever,  _ but I finally managed to focus on my work for a while. Then all of a sudden, the stupid thing  _ screams  _ at me for no reason! Can you believe that?!”

_ Guess it’s too late to correct it now... _

“Yup.”

“Scared me so bad, I threw my favorite wrench at it! And then, get this, it got up, and flew straight into the window!” Box whistles and mimicked a falling motion with his hand then clapped, “Fell straight down!”

“Was it okay?”

“Oh yeah, flew back off with its tail between it’s legs! Whole thing was kinda funny to watch!” Box laughed, “Although, I do kinda miss my wrench… Anyway, how was your day?”

“It was fine.”

Truth be told, Venomous was concerned about what exactly DD wanted from him. All she had left him with was “5 days” and that was it. Although, listening to Box’s excited chattering was somewhat soothing.

“Oh, okay!”

Boxman continued to talk for a while, but Venomous was too focused on not hurting himself by accident to really pick up everything. Something about his “sons”, trying to cook, the board of Villains, the phrase “exploding pies” was mentioned somewhere causing PV to quirk an eyebrow at the shorter man, and pesky heroes getting in the way again.

“Oh Cob dammit all!”

PV was suddenly torn from his concentration as Boxman threw the parts he was holding and punched the table. It broke in half, and Cob was PV jealous of that strength.

Boxman suddenly screamed into an intercom, “RAYMOND, GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!”

“How exactly is he supposed to know-”

“You called father?”

Evidently, knowing where the villains were didn't matter because the spiky, green robot was here anyway. He dramatically pet his- excuse him, but was that a pompadour?? PV hadn’t seen one of those since… Wait, that was before even his time what the-

Box shouted, “Yes, I wanna know what happened to the arm cannon I let you borrow earlier!”

“Ohhhhh, that. Yeah, Darrel wanted to use it against the heroes. He thought you might like it if we tested it for you.”

“WHAT?!”

“I tried to stop him, but he was just so adamant about using it!” Raymond dramatically covered his eyes with his arm, “It was a massacre! Parts went flying everywhere!” The robot got down on his knees, “Forgive me Father, I’ve failed you!” Raymond wailed.

The whole thing seemed weirdly over acted and nonsensical, but that apparently didn’t occur to Box. Not to mention, the pompadour thing but at least the teen robot seemed to be making it work somehow. Boxman suddenly pushed his minion aside and ran full force through the door, breaking yet another one. Raymond picked himself up and looked at the Boxman shaped hole in the door before video calling his sister on his arm.

“Shannon, get the popcorn. I just pinned the cannon thing on Darrel, and Father is  _ so _ mad.”

“Wait really? Oh my Cob, this is gonna be amazing!”

Raymond ran through the hole his boss created. Since he was slightly taller and had a completely different build than Box, Raymond broke the door further causing it to hit the ground with a thud.

_ What is with these people? _

PV shook his head, it was a miracle this place was still standing after all this time. Now that everyone was gone, PV was left alone with his thoughts and the distant sounds of the factory chugging away. What exactly was DD going to make him do? What if he couldn’t complete the task? She would undoubtedly let the information about his past slip out to the public. He knew from personal experience that many villains would stop working with him, who’s to say that he wasn’t still a hero pretending to be a villain to gain their trust and put them behind bars? 

_ Wait, what type of wrench was I supposed to use here again? _

He wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to be using a wrench at all or if what he was currently using even was a wrench in the first place. A part of him wished Box was back, but another part didn’t care. A third part of him ached at the second part of him’s lack of interest in the other man. He grabbed a tool at random and hoped it was the right one. It seemed to work...? Soon, Venomous zoned back into his thoughts again while he worked. Perhaps it might be somewhat good for business for his backstory to be out considering many villains enjoyed a good tragic backstory? No, people’s opinions on his moral status weren’t that important in the grand scheme of things. If PV’s past became public knowledge, he’d have a huge target on his back. Sure he had a world class defense system, but it was only a matter of time before someone broke through. And once they did that, Venomous had very little left to defend himself. He had no powers of his own and he had to worry about keeping Fink safe on top of that, and if his assailants happened to be P.O.I.N.T., well… 

_ The other villains are all just a bunch of cowards! _

Venomous slipped with the wrench, and he cringed as he anticipated the cold bite of steel in his palm. Thankfully, however, the sharp blades of the saws missed his hand by a hair.

_ Oh holy shit, thank Cob. _

He should really focus on what he was doing before he accidentally hurt himself. Well, he  _ could  _ do that, but his paranoia induced thoughts were currently taking over his mind. He wondered what Boxman would think about his past. The man didn’t just hate heroes like any other villain, he straight up loathed them with a burning passion. It was honestly a part of why he loved- ah, admired, the other man. How would Box react if he found out Venomous was a hero? Would he get angry? Maybe he would distance himself? What would he say? How would he act? Would he resort to physical violence? PV didn’t know why, but he was terrified of losing Boxman. Something about this man’s opinion meant so much more to him than anyone else’s. Maybe PV should tell him, Box was a fun guy and he deserved to know the truth. No. No, he didn’t. He shouldn’t. Box should never know the truth, it would only cause more issues-

**_CRASH!_ ** Boxman created a new hole in the wall for no reason in particular.

“All right, I’m back!” 

Box’s sudden declaration of his arrival startled Venomous- causing his hands to slip. Cold, jagged steel tore into PV’s flesh, and he quickly dropped the offending blades onto a table and held his hand tightly and close to his chest.

Boxman ran up to him in a panic, “Oh, geez PV! You okay?”

PV moved his injured hand away from his chest and loosened his grip on it. Blood immediately gushed from the newly formed gash, causing him to immediately hide it back against his chest. He cursed under his breath, more concerned about the inevitable stain on his coat than the injury.

“I’m fine. It’s not that bad, let’s just get back to work-” 

“Now hold on a second! Let me see what you did!”

Box reached out to grab the injured hand, but Venomous defensively moved it out of reach.

“I’m fine, it’s just a flesh wound. It’s not like I’m going to croak.” Venomous laughed, but Box didn’t find this funny.

The shorter man suddenly reached up and grabbed PV’s hand.

“H-hey!”

“Woof, you really got yourself good.” Box laughed, “Should be fine with a little first aid though!”

“See, I told you!” Venomous pulled his hand away aggressively.

“Gonna leave a pretty nasty scar though!” Box laughed.

“Wait, what?”

Boxman leaned into the intercom again, “Ernesto bring me the first aid kit ASAP!”

“Box I’m fine, it’ll stop bleeding in a few minutes.”

“I dunno, PV. Cut’s pretty bad…”

The rotund purple robot gently placed the door back into the frame, opened the door and closed it behind him. There was a massive hole in it and it immediately fell back down once Ernesto closed it, but the knowledge that someone in this madhouse knew how to open and close a door properly was somewhat reassuring.

“Here you are sir.” Ernesto handed over the first aid kit.

“Thank you.” 

“...”

“...”

“NOW GET BACK TO WORK!” Boxman shouted.

“Y-yes sir.”

Ernesto left the room the same way he entered.

“Let’s sit down and take care of that cut, now shall we.”

“Fine.”

PV reluctantly let his science partner lead him to the couch. He wasn’t really given the time to debate sitting on that nasty thing, he just kind of had to. Boxman opened the kit up.

“Gimme your hand.”

PV grumbled for a moment before tentatively reaching his hand out. Before he could retract it, tiny chicken talons were wrapped around PV’s much larger hand and it was being tugged closer to Box. He turned his head away to hide the blush forming on his cheeks, causing PV to miss the few crucial moments before something painful was pressed against the open wound. He took a sharp breath and prepared to fight the perpetrator- for the split second before he kicked something squishy and immediately got sent back to reality.

“Hey, excuse me? I’m tryin to help you, now sit still!” Box tugged the arm back towards him and PV mumbled a “sorry” under his breath. 

He didn’t like having things get rubbed into his cut, but he wasn’t about to fight Boxman since he clearly seemed to know what he was doing. In a few short moments, his cut was cleaned, the bleeding was stopped, and the wound was wrapped up. When he was given his hand back, PV looked at it for a few seconds, then got up.

“Welp, back to work-”

“Ohnononono, you come back here immediately!” Box grabbed the taller man by the waist and forced him to sit back on the couch. “You're gonna reopen that cut, and then it’s gonna be way worse.”

“...Fine…”

“I’ve had personal experience, and trust me; not a fun experience!” Box fell back onto the couch next to PV, prompting the couch to protest and throw PV forward a bit. Box really needed to replace this thing.

“Yeah, I could imagine. You get into a lot of fights with heroes and you're surrounded by murderous robots every second of the day.”

Boxman laughed, “I guess I do get beat up a lot! But, no, I learned first aid as a kid. Had a friend who got in a lot of scraps.”

“You? Friends?”

“Yeah I know, different times.” Box chuckled a little.

“Tell me about it…” PV chuckled knowingly.


	27. You're a Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV can't work on account of his injury, so he teaches Fink piano instead.

“Ow!” PV held his injured hand in pain. “Fink!” He shouted.

Box wouldn’t let PV work with him today on account of his injury. Wasn’t exactly going to stop him though, at least that’s what he thought anyway. Apparently, palm injuries tend to be extremely painful and problematic. All PV wanted to do was work on this stupid bio-chip, but now he had to deal with this.

“Whatcha need, Boss?” Fink asked as she entered the room.

“Ah, there you are. Can you hand me the samples Fink? They’re on the top shelf.”

“Yes Boss!” Fink saluted before running off to get a stool.

As PV watched the young girl shuffle around and struggle to reach for a bit, he really wished he could help. Unfortunately, this dumb cut on his hand was making everything impossible. He looked down at his hand indignantly; a little red stain was creeping across the bandage.

_ Damnit! _

“Fink, could you get me a new bandage and the petroleum jelly, I think I reopened my cut-”

Fink shouted, “Ack!” it was immediately followed by the sound of various objects tumbling onto the ground.

“Fink!” 

PV launched out of his seat, pushing off with his injured palm in the process. A sharp pain shot up his arm.

“Cob-!” He hissed in order to stop himself from swearing.

Fink dug herself out of the various broken plant pots, boxes, and other assorted objects. “I-I’m okay! I’m okay, Boss!” She waved her arms around as if to both prove her point and get him to sit back down. “Here, I’ll go get ya’ those bandages!”

The little rat disappeared from the room before PV could touch the seat. While he waited for his trusty minion to return, he attempted to nurse his injured hand.

“Here ya go Boss!” She handed him some bandages and the petroleum jelly.

“Thank you.”

As he removed the old bandages, he took a look at the damage. Not much had changed from yesterday. It was a miracle PV didn’t need stitches considering he almost passed out just looking at it. The last time he had a palm injury this bad, it was because of  _ The Incident. _

“Cool!” Wonder twinkled in her eyes as she watched the very important and necessary bodily fluid leave her boss’s hand at an alarming rate.

“No, it isn’t.”

PV took the new bandages and applied pressure to his bleeding palm. He looked down and noticed a bit of blood dripped onto the white table below his hand.

“Go get me a rag.” His voice cracked a little as he spoke.

“Yes Boss!”

He almost allowed himself to shed a single manly tear at the thought of his poor white tables being tarnished by his red blood, then he realized he could just buy a new one or something. He was too rich to be concerned about something so trivial, and yet, here he was. To distract himself from such painful thoughts, he turned his attention to the significantly less painful cut in his hand. He removed the pressure to see that the wound had stopped bleeding. He carefully opened the petroleum jelly and smeared a generous helping on his cut. Once that was taken care of, he began wrapping his hand back up.

Fink ran in. “I got the rag!”

“Ah, thank you. Could you clean up the blood for me, I’m a bit  _ wrapped up _ at the moment.”

“Uhg, geez. Fine.” 

Pv almost laughed as he watched his minion clean up the mess for him. As he  _ wrapped up _ what he was doing, he suddenly realized something. PV sighed.

“This isn’t going to work.”

“Hmm?” Fink looked up at her boss quizzically.

“This is the third time today, and I’ve barely gotten anything done. Maybe we should just take the day off or something.”

Fink gasped, “Really?”

“Hmmmm, nah.”

“What?” PV could swear he heard something break in that moment. Probably her poor little rat girl heart.

“You have a piano recital next week.”

“Awww!” Fink drooped onto the floor in disappointment. “But I already know how ta’ play all my songs!”

PV got up. “All right, prove it.”

Fink froze guiltily.

PV called out from the other side of the room, “Come on, let’s go.” He gestured with his healthy hand for her to follow.

“I'm comin’!” Fink called as she ran after him.

PV casually walked towards the grand piano on the far side of the living room. Fink eventually ran past him and sat on the bench patiently. Once PV sat next to her, he pulled out a little book with various pages of sheet music. Very few of the songs in there were the usual, classical piano songs you’d find in a “learn to piano” book. While PV had no particular opinion one way or another on classical piano music, Fink absolutely despised the stuff. In fact, PV had to make a conscious effort to keep his classical music as far away from Fink as humanly possible or she’d throw it into the fireplace. He turned to a particularly challenging song that also happened to be a personal favorite of his.

“Alright. Play this.”

“B-but, this ain’t even played on the piano!”

“And? Now it is. If you really had practiced you would have known about this. You know what, maybe I should take away your videos game you-”

“What? No no no no no! I-I can play it, watch!” Fink shouted then stared at the book blankly for a few seconds.

After she seemed to realize there was no hope of being able to get that right, Fink started blindly slamming keys and belting lyrics. The whole lair was filled with the dreadful sounds of what could only be compared to a cat screaming in a blender while the appliance was being repeatedly slammed into a piano, before setting the entire thing on fire and throwing both the piano and blender into the path of an oncoming train. Then, the train goes off track, hits an oil tanker which causes all the oil to spill out. The fire from the trainwreck sets it on fire too, and the fire follows the oil to the source causing a massive explosion. The explosion sets off a massive chain reaction since there are other oil tankers, a semi carrying a shipment of gunpowder, and another couple semis carrying explosives and next thing you know, a massive kaijuu has swallowed up the Earth. No, wait, that would be far preferable to the egregious sounds now coming out of both Fink and the piano.

“S-stop, please.” He grabbed Fink’s hands to cease the ear bleeding noise. “I’m just messing with you. This is far too complex for you, I just wanted to prove a point.”

“Oh…”

PV grabbed the book and flipped to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” instead.

“There, that’s more your speed.”

“But that song is for babies!”

“Well, if you want to play cooler songs, maybe you shouldn’t spend all your practice time playing your videos game.”

“Hmph!” 

Fink got right to playing. It was terrible. Like, not as bad as last time, but yeah.

PV interrupted the impending trainwreck. “No, no no. Like this.”

His hands glided elegantly across the keys. As he played, not a single mistake was made. He even seemed to produce some extra flourish with his version of the baby’s song. Each note was graceful; they were played neither too quickly nor too slowly. PV totally owned his 4-9 year old minion with his 35+ years of piano experience. He’d feel super epic and cool about it, but it was a literal baby song and he was kind of embarrassed. When he was finished, PV picked his hands off the piano and gave the little girl to his left a smug smile. Fink simply stared back up at her Boss with an incredulous look. 

After several minutes, Fink yelled, “How the heck am I s’posed ta do that?”

The green rat gestured towards the piano with both arms as she looked up at her boss.

“Practice.”

“...”

“...”

“So, that means you should get to work now.”

“Yes, Boss…” Fink answered dejectedly.

PV watched her play for several hours. For the first few hours, he had to remind her what each key was. “That’s an A, you’re looking for the G here,” “No Fink, wrong key the F’s over here,” and similar instructions were given. However, Fink seemed to improve after a while and she no longer needed as much guidance. Eventually, Fink hit all the notes right. Sure the timing was a little off still, but she didn’t make a single mistake.

Fink cheered, “I did it!”

“Good work.” PV ruffled his minion’s hair before turning to his watch. “Yikes, it’s way past your bedtime, missy.”

“Awww…”

PV stood up from the bench and stretched his tired old back out, causing an orchestra of sickening pops and cracks.

“Come on, Fink. Time to go to bed.”

“But I’m not...” She started to yawn as she spoke. “...tired…”

“Come here.” He picked her up with a hefty grunt. “Woof, you’re getting big.”

“Nooo…”

“Sorry, but if you want to be a big, strong villain one day, you have to go to sleep.”

“Mmf…” She tried to protest, but her tiny body was too worn out.

PV delicately laid his minion down in her coconut bed and tucked her in. When he decided she was nicely covered, PV gave Fink a paternal kiss on the forehead before leaving the room. He gently shut the door behind him and made his way to his own room. Since he couldn’t work any more with his messed up hand, PV decided he might as well go to sleep. There wasn’t really too much else he could do. He frequently had nightmares, but his dreams were peaceful that night. When he awoke the next morning, five days had passed. There would be no peace that day.


	28. Devil Deals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV has a job to do or something.

_ Blue. _

The eyes staring back at him in the mirror were a milky blue. PV dreaded this moment every year, even more so today since he had an important job to do. PV sighed as he gazed at his pale reflection. He had no choice but to go out like  _ this. _ He checked his phone. 5:30 PM. He should leave soon; the drive will probably take about 15 minutes and DD wanted him there in an hour. Where  _ there _ was exactly was another thing to worry about. That is to say, he knew how to get  _ there _ but he didn’t know where  _ there _ was or what it’s purpose was. He felt a bit nervous about leaving Fink behind, so he had to get a little reassurance from the Shannon and Darrel he ordered to watch her.

“You sure you two have this covered?”

They spoke at the same time.“Yesyou cansircount on us!”

PV didn’t catch any of that but he didn’t exactly care enough to get them to repeat themselves.

Then Darrel spoke on his own. “Wait, you don’t look too good Bo-”

Shannon promptly slapped him across the face.

“Ow!” Darrel shouted in pain.

Shannon gave the red robot the stink eye. “What bolts-for-brains meant to say was that you look wonderful today; especially your skin! It’s amazing as always and there’s definitely nothing wrong with it whatsoever!” She looked up at him innocently.

PV grumbled at the backhanded insults but ultimately decided not to address them, especially since he would need babysitters in the coming days and his idea of addressing such insults involved the laser gun he kept hidden in his pants pocket any time he left the lair. 

“Ok, just remember her bed time’s at 10 and I should be back by midnight.” He began putting on his hat and lab coat. The extra weight caused him to pull at his turtle neck to relieve some of his skin’s tightness.

“Yessir!” The two robots spoke and saluted in unison before running off in some direction.

“Ok, that was very reassuring…” PV mumbled sarcastically.

After adjusting his turtleneck one last time, PV went out the door and started up the convertible. The Summer sun was still raised quite high in the air, but he knew it wouldn’t be there to guide him home. As he drove, he made sure to favor his good hand to ensure that his cut didn’t reopen again. He followed the directions he was given until he found himself at some sort of pawn shop. Or atleast, that’s what it appeared to be. PV wasn’t exactly caught up on all those poor people™ stores and services. He got out of the car and entered the store.

As he looked around the small shop, PV saw a lot of old jewelry, coins, weaponry, electronics, and several other random objects that were probably pretty important to someone at one point. He also noticed that there were a lot of heroes in the area, which was shocking since he always assumed demons were inherently evil. It seemed there were also quite a few solidly colored and bald imps around, and they seemed to be pretty good at customer service. They all also seemed over dressed for their jobs and had similar tags to the one he had seen on DD. Most curiously, however, not a single one in the room even remotely resembled DD in appearance. They were all so  _ round  _ and  _ soft _ .

A solid orange imp with a blue vest and white dress shirt greeted him in an overly chipper voice, “Hello valued customer! How may I serve you today?”

PV noticed a couple other details about his greeter. They had no pants, because of course they didn’t, and a comically sized pair of circular glasses that rested on a stubby round nose. They also had a classic spade tail and hilariously small wings. The imp was also fairly chubby, and this served to compliment their overall soft and friendly look. The name tag on their chest told PV his greeter’s name was Quinn.

PV stated, “I’m looking for someone. She’s an imp about your height, choppy half shaved brown hair, and-”

“Ohhhh, I’ll go get her! She’s in the back!”

Quinn somehow managed to not only get their body off the ground with those tiny little wings, but they flew away at an alarming speed. Before PV knew it, the imp was gone. After a few short minutes though, they were back with a familiar woman.

“Here she is, friend!” Again, with the overly cheery voice.

Standing next to Quinn was DD, but she looked a little different. She had a red tie, a black suit coat, and a white dress shirt.

“Damn, you’re early.”

“Wow, Boss! Does this mean I can use the F-word now?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Quinn was downcast for probably the first time in their entire life, but it didn’t really last long. “Well, I’m just happy I could be of assistance! Even people like him deserve friendship and compassion!”

PV honestly felt really out of place in this conversation and the not-so-backhanded insult delivered in such a happy tone from such a small and peppy individual just added to the confusion and discomfort.

“Yeah, okay, whatever Quinn,” DD addressed the peppy individual while looking down at her phone.

PV grasped at his turtleneck uncomfortably. The tightness of his skin wasn’t helping the situation.

DD suddenly turned to him. “Whatever disease you have right now better not be contagious, ‘cause I have something really important to do today and I don’t need your weird mortal immune system to get in the way.”

“I’m fine,” PV hissed.

“Better not be lying. Come on.” The clearly agitated goat woman waved her hand for PV to follow.

He wasn’t exactly going to argue. As he followed DD, PV spared one last glance at Quinn. The orange imp was giving PV the biggest, happiest smile PV had ever seen as they waved goodbye. A shiver ran down his spine and he quickly turned back just as DD kicked open a door in the back. Although “open” was being generous considering there was no longer even a door to be opened left. In its place, was now several broken pieces of wood being kicked absentmindedly further into the room.

_ Yikes, I guess Boxman isn’t the only one who has no idea how to open a door... _

The room was nicely furnished, but somewhat small. A fully sized person was definitely over the occupancy limit and he had to slouch a little which made not tripping over the wood ten times harder. There was some comically small furniture, but PV didn’t have the time to appreciate it since DD roughly grabbed him by the bad hand and led him into a closet that used to have a white door sending a sharp pain up his arm. The only thing in the closet was a pulsating, swirly, and red portal. DD threw him into the portal, and PV’s landing was shockingly tactful all things considered.

The room he landed in was shockingly massive. It took him a few minutes to realize, but this was the room where DD held her last party. Without the chaos and destruction everywhere, the room looked far different and now he could properly appreciate the gothic aesthetic. The room was primarily reds and blacks, but there were also a few accents of white and grays here and there. The walls had a patterned wallpaper and the pair of red, curved stairs all had black banisters and led to a similarly colored and designed balcony. There were several doors leading into different rooms and a massive gothic chandelier in the center of the ceiling. There were several smaller lights lining the walls and black columns in the room. Unlike last time, there were no tables. Instead, there was now a clear view of the ornately tiled floors. However, PV’s enjoyment was cut short when DD finally joined him in the room.

“Enjoying the view?” She smiled at him deviously.

PV looked at her, then looked back at the room. “I guess it’s nice.”

Her smile was immediately replaced with a scowl. “Please put your coat and hat over there,” DD commanded and pointed at a coat rack next to the portal in the corner of the entryway.

Once PV had done what he was told, he followed DD into another, much smaller room. Aesthetically, it wasn’t much different than the other room. However, he quickly found himself reacquainted with that chaos he sorely missed from the last room. It was significantly lighter in color, but it was hard to tell under all the food smeared on the walls. It seemed to be a somewhat smaller room filled with young imps of various different colors, heights, and body types. They also all were wearing little sailor suits and some of them had those weird rainbow hats with the propeller on top that you only ever see on TV. Imps were throwing toys or food (and in one special case it was toys in food), some of them were screaming and crying, and a pile of imps were attacking something. There was also a big giant TV that had somehow managed to escape harm so far.

“What is going on?” PV asked dumbfoundedly.

“Your new job.” DD spat venomously.

The goat woman laughed diabolically before slamming the door behind him. PV considered chasing after her, banging on the door and begging to be let out, but he knew there was no point. He was stuck here. Not to mention how embarrassing that would be. He sighed and reluctantly turned around to assess the damage.

PV cleared his throat.

…

…

...the chaos continued completely unfazed.

“Alright everyone, time to calm down.”

…

…

PV raised his voice, “Excuse me?!”

…

…

“Hey!” He yelled.

Then suddenly everything stopped. The young imps stopped to stare at him. It was just for a second, but that was all PV needed.

“Now that I have your attention-”

**_Thunk!_ **

Suddenly, a gust of air passed by PV’s face followed by devilish laughter. He turned around to see a little toy truck on the ground by the wall. Three of the wheels were broken off, but there was only one wheel nearby. As he approached the truck, the chaos behind him started back up as if nothing ever happened. PV sighed and looked back at the chaos. Despite himself, he decided to help the poor lump trapped under the pile of children.

“Come on guys, leave them alone.” PV batted some of the young imps off of the individual.

The children all protested as he allowed their victim to breath. Once most of them were off, PV suddenly found all his airways blocked off as the damsel in distress wrapped her gloved paws tightly around his thin frame and roughly shoved PV’s face into her body. He struggled a little before accepting his incoming mortality.

_ So that’s it then? This is how I die? I guess that’s not so bad, but I expected worse. At least I won’t have to be here anymore. _

Suddenly, there was a bright light.

_ This is it. Finally, I’m free- _

“Ahh! Thank you so much Dr. Purple!”

It was Cob damn Karen again. PV already wasn’t looking forward to this job, but now he had to do it with _her._


	29. Imp Sitting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -Insert summary or something-

_ Physically speaking, Karen didn’t look too bad. _

PV always liked them _thiccc._ Unlike Boxman however, she was only thicc with two cs instead of three, so she wasn’t nearly as attractive. She was still attractive though. Her personality and face however, left much to be desired. Her hair was wild, crazy and a poorly done bottle blond. Her much darker roots were beginning to show and the tackiness of it all was brought together by chunky bleached highlights. Her makeup was cheap and unflattering; the amount that was caked on seemed to add 20 years to her age rather than remove them. He usually tried to stay significantly further away from her than this, but he no longer had a choice. Thankfully she wasn’t hugging him so tightly anymore, so now PV could breathe again.

“Hello, Karen.” PV spat a little more aggressively than he meant to.

“Excuse me? That is not my name!” The obnoxious, middle aged catwoman feigned shock and anger.

PV crossed his arms, rolled his eyes and sighed.

“What is it now, then?” He asked sarcastically.

PV had no intent on calling her by whatever the name of the week was this time.

“Rude. But I’m willing to forgive you since you have such a pretty face!” She groped his face aggressively and spoke in baby talk as she did so.

PV slapped her gloved paw away in agitation. She rubbed the offending paw and pouted.

“Ouch. Heeeeey, you don’t look so-” 

“I know.” He was tempted to scratch his injured hand, but PV knew better.

“Shouldn’t you maybe be at home or-”

PV raised his voice, “I’m fine!”

“Are you sure? Because-”

“YES.” PV snapped at the obnoxious cat woman.

“...”

“...”

All was silent for a few seconds.

Then, Karen suddenly perked up and left her other paw out for a hand shake. “Well in that case, people call me Kitty Black now!” She leaned in close and whispered in PV’s ear, causing him to shudder. “But  _ you _ can just call me Kitty!” She giggled and winked at him before returning to her original position.

“...No.”

PV turned around to leave but then-

**_Thunk!_ **

-something hit the back of his head! He turned around to face his adversaries.

“Hey! Who threw-”

All the imp children were staring at him with massive demonic smiles. Some were carrying baseball bats, various hard toys, and plates of food. PV wasn’t sure where the food came from, but it was suddenly being tossed at Kitty Black’s face.

“...That…?”

“Eek!” Kitty ran behind PV and used him as a human shield.

“Take him! He’s much more evil than me!”

“Eh, what?”

“Ew! He has some sort of disease!” One of the children screamed and pointed at him.

“Uh, Yeah! That’s right! This man here, he has, uh, terminal skin-peel-itis! Yeah! And uh, it’s super contagious!”

PV turned his head to face the woman using him as a shield. “Excuse me?”

The children gasped. Kitty attempted to brandish PV like a dangerous weapon.

“Back! Back you foul beasts!” She yelled

“He’s gonna give us alltimers!”

PV slapped the woman’s paws off him. “Stop that! I am not diseased!” He spat, “It’s Alzheimer's for one, and two, I’m not even that old!” 

“Is that so?”

PV turned to face the owner of the snobby sounding voice. He was a red imp with some sort of brown rich boy bowl cut hairstyle thing that had a part in the bangs and his hair was straight. The author doesn’t know what that’s called, honestly. He had the same sailor outfit all the other kids had, but he also had an eyepatch over his left eye and was a little taller than the other kids.

The boy smiled devilishly as he spoke in his rich people™ accent, “That’s sad, because I really don’t like ugly people. And your skin is positively repulsive.” He snapped his claws.

Suddenly all the devil children began running after the pair of villains all at once. PV glanced in the direction Kitty was in, only to find nothing there.

_ Of course… _

He sprinted out the now wide open door; it was the only way out of the room after all. Several toys and plates of food were thrown at him as he ran. He dodged most of the objects, but the children got a few choice hits on him. As he ran, PV tripped over an end table. The lamp on top started to wobble and PV rushed to save the fragile light source. He made it just in time, but the little monsters were given ample time to catch up. They giggled as they clawed at his arms and legs.

“OW! Stop that!” He desperately swatted and kicked the little claws off him and attempted to run further.

Unfortunately, some of the children pounced on the grown man. This slowed him down quite a bit, and he had to struggle to get them off. He continued to run, and he grabbed at the children on his back desperately using exclusively his good hand. It was already hard enough to run in heels, but having children struggling to stay on him and knock him down at the same time made it even worse. 

“Ouch!”

One of the little monsters pulled on his hair, causing him to fall on the ground right side first. This knocked the imps off pretty quickly, but the one holding his hair kept a tight grasp for a bit. This dragged him down even faster. As he hit the ground, they finally let go, and PV used the momentum he still had to desperately scramble off the ground and fling himself into another room. He stumbled for a little longer but eventually got running again. This didn’t last long though, since the imps quickly overcame him again. Even more of the devils landed on him this time, causing him to immediately crash back down onto the ground again. He tried to use the small amount of momentum he still had to get away, but he applied a bit too much pressure to his injured hand and pain shot up his left arm. Immediately, he dropped back down onto the ground again and stopped moving. Without thinking, PV reached for the ray gun he kept in his back pocket for some how. Before he could pull it out, however, he reminded himself that he would get in loads of trouble if any of them died or were injured. It didn’t matter if they were children though, he’d willingly shoot a child. Screw children.

The children began dragging him closer. He kicked and squirmed, and he made a bit of distance at first. However, as skilled as he was at escaping capture, his adversaries were many. With each half inch he moved forward, six more hands were added to the mass and each one pulled him back two inches. Soon, PV was completely smothered by children. He felt small claws grab at the ray gun in his back pocket.

“Cool!” The voice was muffled.

PV attempted to yell, to reach out for his gun. But the hundreds of tiny bodies stole all the air from his lungs and anything he could get out was just muffled gibberish. PV could feel something being wrapped around his limbs. The tightness caused him great pain considering the current state of his skin. There was an attempt to breath in sharply as a response, but his lungs would not function. He was certain this would cause problems later, if he survived anyway. PV once again, found himself accepting death via asphyxiation.

_ Now this is more like it. I always knew it would be an army of children who killed me. Not like this per se, but still. _

And with that, he passed out. It was probably an hour or so later when he awoke, and PV found himself in a strange and dark place. He was stuck in a sitting position on something that seemed to be made of wood and was somewhat padded. He also noticed that something a little stiff was sitting over his mouth, so he couldn’t ask questions or call for help. PV then made an attempt to move his limbs, but something was keeping them firmly in place and his hands seemed to be stuck behind him. Wood scraped against wood as he tried to move, and each movement caused PV to harshly teeter. With his expert detective skills, PV deduced that he was currently locked in a dark closet and tied to a chair with tape over his mouth. This was very obvious of course and pretty much anyone could immediately recognise all of the above if they were in the same situation, but PV wanted to feel smart.

As PV gazed around the dark closet, he could pick up a few small details. Nothing. Everything seemed normal except the weird human sized shape right across from him. Suddenly, the object seemed to move a little! There was a slight muffled grumbling which reassured PV that it was just Karen talking in her sleep. He breathed out of his nose heavily and started the process of getting himself free. 

Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be any good corners for him to cut the rope with, and there wasn’t anything useful on the ground either. PV began to wiggle his arms out from behind him and wiggle his boots off. The flexing of his injured palm undeniably reopened his wound, as pain surged through his arm. It was unfortunate that they got the slip on him so he had no opportunity to make himself bigger in order to escape faster, but he could still get out. It was quite painful for his already hurting skin, but the rope they used was thankfully very thick and the least painful material to escape from. He managed to slip out of his boots first. The slippery material glistened beautifully when the light hit it just right, but it was also good for slipping out of ropes quickly. When he kicked the boots and rope off together, he made sure his lovely boots didn’t fly off too far.

The knots used to tie his hands together were very loose, and he managed to get them untied in the process of wiggling them up. He used his newly untied hands to take the tape off his mouth. The action was incredibly painful, resulting in a sharp intake of air through his teeth. By the looks of things, he lost a good bit of stubble but his skin was shockingly undamaged. He wasn’t going to complain, a free waxing was a free waxing, PV just might have to do a little extra work making himself look presentable again once he got home.

PV then moved on to the remaining rope. One of the advantages of losing all his muscle mass was that now he was a lot more flexible, so he could very easily reach his arms back and untie the loose knot. Within a second, the last of the ropes loosened around him and fell down to the floor below. PV got up from the chair and stretched out his stiff body causing his back to pop rather loudly, which somehow didn’t wake up Karen. How long had he been in that chair? PV grabbed his boots and put them back on then tentatively opened the door that was behind him to let in a little light and get a peek at where he was exactly.

The closet was attached to a gothic hallway with similar coloration to the rest of the mansion. There were a few paintings on the walls, but none of them really drew his attention at that time. The new light revealed to PV that the closet was full of various cleaning products, and the corners were all rounded. PV got the feeling this wasn’t the first time someone was tied up in this closet.

Using the lights from the hall, PV rolled up his sleeve and checked his wrist watch. Then, he sighed. Instead of a watch, there was bare, scaly skin. PV looked to the other side of the room, and glared at the sleeping pickpocket across the closet.

_ Cob dammit Karen. _


	30. How to Train Your Imp Children for Evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV finds his watch, teaches a lesson, and asks a question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And starting Saturday, we will be back to our regularly scheduled chapters that exclusively/ primarily consist of canon characters. Next one is a PV going to work chapter, and then after that is several Voxman chapters in a row (don't know for sure how many yet just simply because I have a tendency to write longer than anticipated by the outline).

_ PV gazed at all the pouches on her belts tentatively. _

He wasn’t too interested in trying to dig through those pockets considering the belts’ placements around her waist, then PV remembered there were similar bracelets around each of her wrists. PV carefully made his way behind Kitty, making extra sure to not bump her or the supplies around her. Once he was in reach of her hands, he noticed that the knot was in the way. He really didn’t want to untie a kidnapping victim, but he really wanted his watch back. PV ultimately decided he would tie her hands back up even better than they were before when he was done, and carefully removed the loose ropes from Karen’s wrists to open one of the bracelet pouches. It was hard to see the contents at his angle, so PV decided to dig around blindly.

“Woah.” PV whispered in surprise.

PV’s whole arm was quickly engulfed by some sort of pocket dimension. A pile of things surrounded his hands immediately, but the speed of his arrival seemed to send a large portion of the objects touching him tumbling downwards.

_ Well that explains a lot. _

He grabbed the first thing he touched-

_ A sandwich? _

He sniffed it, then immediately gagged in disgust. He tossed the moldy old sandwich off to the side and continued digging. Among the objects he pulled out where as followed:

A couple lamps (only some of which fit the gothic aesthetic of DD’s mansion), some familiar looking glass and porcelain figures, a full sized painting of Billiam, a cat (PV promptly returned the poor animal to the pocket dimension after it attempted to slash his eyes out), catnip, one of his poor bonsai plants which had clearly seen much better days (poor Carl, he was PV’s favorite), some lavender Fabuloso all purpose cleaner with a torn up and stained piece of notebook paper reading “DO NOT DRINK! THIS IS NOT REGULAR GRAPE JUICE,  **IT IS THE MURDER GRAPE JUICE!** We can’t afford another hospital bill now, Kitty! ;) -Kitty<3”, his wallet-

_ Wait… _

He checked his back pocket- nothing.

_ Cob dammit, Karen. _

Thankfully, PV really only used his wallet for pocket change and forged documents like IDs and stuff. Since he had his wallet on him when he came in, it was safe to say she hadn’t used any of it up. PV decided to check though, just to be sure.

_ Yup, everything’s in order! _

All 10,000 technos were perfectly intact, and not a single ID or fake receipt was out of place! It really was no big deal for him to lose such a small amount, but he still didn’t like the idea of poor people being in possession of his rich people™ money. PV accessed most of his money through his bank account on his smart watch anyway… Which Karen also stole… He sighed and went back to digging. He continued to grab completely useless items, to the point where the room was now uncomfortably full of random junk. He was starting to get desperate, but there was still no watch. She had to have snatched it from him! As annoying and washed up as she was, she was still a master pickpocket and apparently a hoarding extraordinaire. Besides, those kids were not subtle at all and he probably would have felt it when one of them snatched it up.

As PV dug out a package of Fink’s favorite juice boxes (that’s probably how he ran out so fast), he suddenly realized something. If the pouches could be stretched to pull out and put in objects larger than the actual pouch, perhaps PV could stick his head in and take a peek. And so, that’s exactly what he did.

Instead of some sort of weird pocket dimension like he expected, PV found himself inside a very messy one room apartment with a small army of cats. Thankfully for both the cats and the owner, the several piles of objects filling the room weren't big enough to engulf the floor or touch the ceiling yet, but the room was definitely heading in that direction if the owner didn’t get therapy soon. That retired hero in his heart ached for a second before he quickly forced those feelings back into their grave; this was the woman who stole his money and his nice fancy watch. Screw her. 

He began to enter the room further. PV had a feeling that he would be trapped here if he went all the way through, so he stopped entering the pouch at his waist. PV gazed around the piles of stuff. Some of the cats looked at him funny, but they didn’t seem to care otherwise. Eventually, he spotted the watch towards the top of a pile on the other side of the room. 

PV returned to the closet. Based on the way the piles were positioned, PV could assume that the pile with the watch in it belonged to either Karen’s right arm band or the right side of one of her belts. He carefully slithered behind Karen and positioned himself in the much tighter space between her right side and the wall. It was difficult, but PV eventually managed to squeeze his whole left arm in while he used his healthier hand to keep the pouch open wide enough for his head to get in.

As he re-entered the apartment, he sighed in relief. He had guessed correctly, so he quickly snatched the little smart watch up and exited the pouch. PV took the rope and re-tied it around Karen’s wrists. Once he was sufficiently proud of his handiwork, he finally left the tiny closet. He shut the door on the way out, and noticed that this was one of those weird closets that locked from the outside. Those children missed a vital opportunity, not that it would have held him up for too much longer.

He didn’t spend too long admiring the hall since he had a job to do, but he did notice a lot of doors on his way out. Probably bedrooms. When he got to the end, he suddenly found himself at the top of the little balcony overlooking the main room he was in earlier. He wasn’t entirely sure how the kids managed to drag him up the stairs without damaging his sensitive skin too much, but he was certainly impressed.

PV continued down the echoey stairs and silently slithered his way back into the play room. The kids were still causing a serious ruckus, but they seemed a lot tamer than usual. PV swiftly and silently made his way to the eye-patch kid, everyone was far too enthralled by the stolen ray gun he was currently using to destroy the once immaculate TV to notice the tall man heading their way. He shoved his way into the crowd and snatched the gun out of the boy’s hand.

“Hey buddy, that’s not safe-”

“H-how did you get out so fast?” The boy looked up at PV with a mix of terror and… wonder? Awe? Something of that sort.

“It was easy, although I am impressed you managed to catch me.~” He allowed a small, genuine smile to creep across his face and kneeled down at the kid’s level. “Tell you what, how about you don’t try to shove me in any more closets, steal my things, break things, or anything else that’ll cause problems for me, and I teach you how to tie someone up right?~” PV punctuated his question with a hum.

The kid thought for a minute before responding with, “Ok, deal!”

“Good,~” PV purred and the two shook hands. “I know you have duct tape and rope, but do you have any thinner ropes or cords? Oh, and we’ll need some of this.” He pulled a zip tie out of his pocket.

PV always kept a zip tie on him just in case he had to teach an army of children how to kidnap someone. Shockingly, this was actually the third time. Kids really liked learning how to properly kidnap people for some reason.

One of the younger imps in the back piped up, “Oh, yeah! I tink I saw some ‘a dose in one ‘a da supply closets, tere were tinner wopes too!”

“Well, get them!” The eyepatch kid ordered.

“Yes big bwo!” She saluted before fluttering off with a couple other imps.

After a bit of a wait, the trio of children who left returned with the supplies PV had asked for.

“So, who we tyin’ up?” Eyepatch kid was clearly excited to torment someone; he would make an excellent villain some day.

“Oh, she’s still in the closet, right where you left her. We should head back, before she regains consciousness.” PV pointed over his shoulder towards the door behind him.

PV and his new army of demon children quickly made their way to Karen’s eternal prison. He opened the door wide; his shadow devoured the woman sitting in front of him. She was awake now, her eyes seemed to sparkle as soon as she saw who was at the door. Karen somehow managed to open her mouth effortlessly and straight up ate the duck tape off her face in one gulp.

“Oh yay, it’s Dr. Hottie here to save me!”

PV frowned at her and grumbled.

Karen hummed, “Oh you don’t like that one?” She smiled innocently and spoke baby talk, “Gotta turn that frown upside down, Mr. Grumpy pants!”

One “Mr. Grumpy Pants” simply deadpanned in response. He really wished she was gagged right now, because PV was struggling not to gag in response to… whatever she was trying to do here.

“So, uh… You gonna untie me now?”

“No.”

Just then, the imps looked into the room and PV smirked evilly. The look of confusion that evolved into one of sheer terror was delicious, PV almost drooled a little at the thought of tying Karen up and torturing her for hours. 

“Gather ‘round kids, I’m going to show you the right way to tie someone up.”

The closet became rather cramped as the imp children tried to push their way into the tiny space.

“A little room, please.” PV commanded the children and held out his hand expectantly, “Tape.”

The children passed the roll to PV and he immediately began his lesson.

“So, the first thing you did wrong,”  **_Riip!_ ** He unrolled a piece of tape. “-was that you only used rope. That’s not going to hold anyone for long.” PV roughly grabbed Karen’s hands.

“W-wait! What are you doing? I-I didn’t do anything-”

“Excuse me,” PV raised his voice, “I’m trying to explain something!” He manifested his tail and rattled it as a warning. He turned to face the children. “Could someone please get a rag and gag her?”

“Yessir!” 

One of the imps saluted and squirmed her way through the crowd of children in order to grab one of the rags stored in the closet. When she handed it to PV, he could tell it was probably laden with some sort of cleaning chemical. PV didn’t care though, she probably had plenty of brain damage already. He put the tape down for a second and began forcing the cloth into her mouth; Karen’s cheap makeup was smudged in the process. PV shifted to the side so the children could see what he was doing.

“Since your knots were awfully loose, I thought this would be a good opportunity to show you kids how to properly tie a knot.”

The fear and rage in Karen’s eyes brought a massive grin to PV’s face. The muffled screams were an extra bonus. Once PV was done gagging Karen, the demonstration went on for a couple more hours. The children were very good listeners, and they caught on rather quickly. PV even allowed some volunteers to tie up parts of Karen’s body themselves. He corrected their mistakes, and they took PV’s criticism gleefully. These children would make fine supervillains one day, perhaps one of them may end up becoming his minion or even end up taking him down. PV couldn’t wait for that day. He was so proud of all the kids, he lost track of time. Before he knew it, DD was back.

PV and the children had returned to the playroom half an hour ago already when the door suddenly opened. All the precious children immediately crowded around the door and yelled. Some yelled “Mom!”, others yelled “Mommy!” or “Mama!”, but the alpha kid had to be special and called her “Mother”.

DD asked them, “Did you all have fun?”

“Yes!” They declared in unison.

“Good.” She patted one of the kids on the head.

“We learned how to properly tie someone up!”

“That's… great…? Well anyway, Mommy has to talk to your babysitter now.”

It was so surreal seeing DD actually be nice to people for once, that PV almost didn’t realize she was walking towards him.

“‘Aight, debt’s repaid. Now get outta my house.” She started pushing PV out of the room.

“Hey, excuse me?” PV slithered out of her grasp just as they entered the big room. “I have something else I need from you before I leave-”

“Excuse me?” DD shoved PV so roughly he nearly fell over. “Just because you’ve repaid your debts, doesn’t mean you suddenly have the right to free information. Get. Out.” She flew up high enough to look down on PV and stared at him threateningly. “Now.”

“I can pay you.” The words came out a little quicker than PV wanted them to. “I can assure that money is no object for me. Just name your price.” He added more confidently.

The woman simply stared at him for a few seconds before ultimately landing and agreeing.

“What would you like to know?”

PV looked away from her before speaking, “There’s this kid, and some dates line up a little too well for my liking… I was wondering if there was a possibility that maybe...” He trailed off.

“You already know that answer. Now get out, and stop wasting my time.”


	31. Busy Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV makes up for his week-long absence by being extra shitty.

_ Shockingly, last week had been rather uneventful. _

Upon arriving home from his babysitting venture around a week ago, he quickly found that he had a lot of free time on his hands to figure out what DD’s parting words had truly meant as a result of his annual “My stupid snake DNA is acting up again” vacation. During this time, he came to the conclusion that that KO kid was most likely not his son. It was merely a strange set of circumstances, and PV had simply fallen prey to his paranoid delusions yet again. Thus, the thoughts were permanently shelved along with all the rest of his little episodes.

When PV fused his DNA with a snake, he thought it would serve as a nice replacement for his powers. Venomous fangs could be pretty useful, and he was already turning purple from some other failed experiment. While he certainly got what he wanted, it was not all sunshine and rainbows. As it turns out, venom for one thing, was a bit of a double edged sword if you didn’t yet know how to control it. Relationships of a more intimate nature were especially affected by this fact, and he would probably never be able to love properly again... On the plus side, he can kind of unhinge his jaw a little, so that’s cool or something. 

There were of course other side effects, like a rattle-tipped tail that betrayed him constantly by declaring his true emotions to everyone, so he usually tried to keep it tucked away and thankfully even learned to make it small enough to comfortably hide for some time as long as he remained calm. However, the worst part of this whole thing was the shedding by a long shot. Cob, PV really took shedding small portions of skin year round for granted. But thankfully, it was all over for now. No more feeling trapped by his own skin, comments about being diseased, blurry vision from the shedding skin over his eyes, fear of damaging his skin, and tanks in self esteem from looking at his gross reflection in the mirror. Well, maybe not that last one too much, but he did feel a little happier with his face now that he wasn’t shedding any more.

Fink was always such a big help when he shed, no matter how irritable and mean he got. Hell, he even regurgitated part of a rat he ate at some point and she didn’t complain at all when she cleaned it up for him. She left him meals- if you could consider princess toast and apples “meals”- for him every day. She didn’t seem to take it to heart when he didn’t touch any of it either. Not only that, but she even threw out the discarded skin he left while he took a recovery nap. He had a lot of work he missed out on during his little “vacation”, so he opted to let her help him all day around the lab instead. Sure, more work seemed like a pretty bad reward for helpful behavior, but Fink genuinely seemed to enjoy just spending time with her boss. That, and she had his permission to leave and go play with all of her new toys if she got bored. It was cute, endearing, and it was the only thing he had time for at the moment.

PV began to write something down in his notes as he observed the biochip under a microscope to make sure everything was working as intended (and it was) when Fink suddenly snatched the pencil out of his hand.

“Sorry Boss, no pencils! Yer hand is still all messed up!”

“But it’s not even my dominant hand for one, and it’s practically healed now too.”

“So? Thems the rules Boss, don’t wan’ a repeat a’ last time!”

_ Ah yes, “The Incident”. _

“You will never let me live that down, will you?”

Fink giggled, “Nope!”

“So, how do you expect me to write my notes down exactly?”

“Just use an app on yer phone!”

PV’s face wrinkled in confusion. “...app?”

“Oh, just gimme yer phone!”

Fink snatched PV’s phone out of his pocket before he could properly address her order. She fiddled around with it for a few seconds before handing it back.

“Here, ya see this?” She pointed to a little square on the screen that appeared to be a piece of paper. “This is an app that lets ya’ write notes!”

“Okay…”

It took only a few seconds for him to figure the app out, while Fink simply huffed in response and turned back to what she was helping him with. There was a short moment of silence before she piped up again.

“I don’t understand why you hang out with him.”

“Excuse me?”

“Buttman. I saw yer gross texts with him.” She pointed down her throat and gagged.

“He’s not that bad-”

“Yes he is!” She turned on him in anger. “He’s mean, and his cooking is icky, and his bots don’t play good, and he smells bad!” She waved her arms around wildly as she spoke.

Even though that last one was definitely true, he still felt himself getting quite…  _ agitated _ ?

“Fink,-” PV turned to glare at his young minion, crossing his arms in the process.

“He’s so dumb too! But you kept compla- complimentin’ his doodoo ideas!”

If he was mildly agitated before, he was fuming now. His glare hardened as he fought to keep himself from lashing out and quiet the rattling from his tail. “Excuse me?” Fink, however, didn’t seem to notice and continued on anyway.

“Like, how’s stealin doors s’posed ta do anything? They could literally just buy new ones, or-or keep the animals out themselves! And that’s another thing-”

PV snapped, “Fink! Boxman is a very intelligent, and passionate villain, and I will hear no further badgering about my choice to associate with him!”

Fink cringed and sunk in on herself. PV had to turn away out of guilt.

_ I just yelled at Fink… _

PV swallowed, as the awkward silence filling the room weighed down his shoulders. Perhaps the combined stress of dealing with DD, a shedding, and the pile of extra work as a result was getting to him. 

“Sorry, I’m a little stressed at the moment. Why don’t you go play with one of your new toys?” PV muttered in the kindest tone he could manage, “I’ll call you if I need you.” His eyes didn’t leave the bio-chip in front of him.

“...Yes Boss…” Fink whispered before turning around and sulking out of the room.

PV sighed and continued working on the bio-chip. He was pretty much done with it already, but he needed something to keep his mind occupied right now.

_ Yeah, that’s why I’m still working on this… _

In an attempt to drive his thoughts further away from what had just occurred, PV steered his thoughts in a different direction.

_ I really hope Boxman likes the work I’ve done with this thing, his work has been pretty impressive so far. And sure, he doesn’t smell the best, but it’s… _

PV stopped for a moment to shove this line of thinking down deeper in his mind; ultimately deciding the thoughts he was trying to distract himself from originally were far more preferable to these new, Boxman centered ones.

_ Why does it matter so much who I choose to associate with? She’s supposed to be my minion, she has no jurisdiction over what I choose to do. Neither should anyone else! Why does anyone care about how I decided to work with a genuinely passionate and hardworking man? And why can’t they see how  _ valuable  _ a coworker he truly is? Are super villains really this cowardly and this obsessed with the status quo that they need to not only immediately reject anyone who thinks outside the box, but anyone who chooses to give him a chance? To hear him out? Cob, what is wrong with these people!? _

**_BANG!_ ** PV slammed his good fist on his desk.

_ His dedication to destroying heroes and his creativity could be valuable assets against POINT and they still reject him! And he still gave me a chance even though I… _

His shoulders suddenly felt too heavy to keep from slouching. He sighed, as the second set of thoughts he was trying to avoid started flooding in.

_ Cob, I’m such an ass…  _

He could tell he wouldn’t be able to work on anything else for a while. He resigned himself to checking his planner and then his watch to see if he could cut anything from his schedule today.

_ Shit! _

Turns out he was now half an hour late to a video conference with the congress woman. Without further thought, he immediately got up and sprinted to the meeting room.

_ Shitshitshitshitshit! _

He slammed the doors open and threw himself into the chair. He hastily hit the call button, and took a deep breath in and out before adjusting his lab coat to make it look like he totally didn’t just sprint across his mansion like a crazy person. He was definitely late on purpose. Absolutely. He meant to do that. He made sure to fix his hair up just seconds before the grey… rabbit? Picked up.

“What do you want, Professor Venomous?” She spat venomously.

“Why are you so angry? I don’t recall doing anything too illegal lately… yet… Now could we make this quick, please? I have a lot of far more important things to get to today.”

This wasn’t technically a lie, after all, he had been “sick” for a whole week.

“You know why!” She started, clearly intimidated by his calm, uncaring attitude.

She kept going for a while, but PV wasn’t really paying attention. In order to keep himself from falling asleep while the congress woman ranted, he decided he’d take this time to try and figure out what kind of animal she was supposed to be. The congress woman had a brown bob or something similar (he didn’t really care), and frequently fiddled with her glasses. Her nose was round and some shade of red he wasn’t artistic enough to know the name of. (In the author’s opinion it appears to be cerise colored.) Her ears- were those even ears?- were kinda small and stuck straight up on the top of her head. Analysing all these details, he still couldn’t really figure it out. He had decided she was probably a rabbit or some other lagomorph or rodent or-

“-and lastly, you were late to the meeting you called for-!”

“Like I said, I’m a very busy man and I have significantly more important matters to attend to today. Now if you’re done wasting oxygen, there’s something I was interested in asking you about.”

“What?”

“Are you perhaps familiar with a certain bill on animal rights that the congress should be voting on soon?”

“Yes, quite.” She crossed her arms and waited expectantly for PV to continue.

“I want you to vote against it.”

The congress woman shouted, “What? You know I can’t do that, it’s my duty as a congress woman to uphold the rights and freedoms of every living creature-”

PV purred, “But what about my rights and freedoms? Hmm~? My business is  _ very  _ important to me, and unfortunately, a ban on animal testing would have a detrimental effect on my income. You are aware that I have a little girl here with me right?” 

He stopped for a moment to gage her reaction. The slight discomfort and fear in her eyes filled him with pride.

_ Bingo. _

PV went in for the kill. “It would really be a shame if, say, my business was hurt badly enough to land us on the streets. What kind of childhood would that be? Oh, or better yet, what if I,” He gestured to himself with his good hand, “her sole guardian, was arrested or, I don’t know, killed.” PV almost propped his head up on his left hand, but caught himself and used the other hand instead. “I think you know about as well as I do that our orphanages this day and age are...  _ unsatisfactory.  _ Some are even a tad over capacity.”

The congress woman thought it over for a second before ultimately declining. “No, this might have worked for you last time, but I’m standing my ground! I refuse to be manipulated any further, Professor Venomous!”

PV sighed as annoyance and boredom overwhelmed him. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I was really hoping you’d have enough sense to just take the easy way out.” He hissed, “But it seems I’ve greatly overestimated your intelligence. Look, you see that giant thing outside my window?”

PV watched the woman’s eyes scan over the area behind him.

“Yeah, what about it.”

He leaned forward slowly, blinked, and lazily lifted his right arm up to gesture in the object's general direction. “It’s a doomsday device, currently aimed at that new homeless shelter in Neo Riot. Certainly would be a shame if something were to happen to it,” he added dully.

“You’re bluffing!” The urgency in her voice gave him some satisfaction, but at this point he was already quite done today.

PV yawned. “Nope. This conversation bores me, so I’ll give you a couple days to think my offer over, and then hopefully we can come to some sort of agreement.”

“Excuse me-!”

“Same time as today, although, I can’t promise I’ll be so early as I do have other meetings with far more important and intelligent people than you scheduled that day.”

“Hold-!” He hung up before she could finish.

PV sighed and slid back in his seat. He could feel a migraine coming on, so he pinched the bridge of his nose a second time. He took a peek at his schedule, and then his watch and groaned. The day had only just started, and he still had another ten hours of  _ this. _ PV had just resigned himself to a long day of nothing but phone calls, emails, and stuffy meetings when suddenly-

**_Vrrt vrrt._ **

He sighed and checked the message, then smiled.

~good morning pv!


	32. Suddenly a Chat Fic (but with text messages)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boxman and PV have a nice talk over text because the author wanted to experiment with new writing formats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a little late! As I said on Twitter, I was playing Pokémon (my Christmas present) all day to the point where I accidently forgot to eat (oops). Coincidentally, that fact happens to fit with this chapter. Also, I kinda woke up late since I spent several hours last night trying to find the song "The Suburbs" by Arcade fire. All I could remember was that it was a sad song and that the music video had something to do with childhood and a military dystopia. It's a really good song and I genuinely can't sleep some nights when I get caught up on something like a song until I've listened to it enough for my brain to decide I can do things again. My brain is broken, I swear. Anyway, it's a really good song and I would recommend listening to it if you haven't already. It has nothing to do with the fic, but I am listening to it now while I write chapter 37 and edit this chapter before it goes up.

9:42AM

Morning.~

~howve u been?

Very busy. I’m behind on a lot of work due 

to my illness.~

you?~

~yikes! their rlly working u hard after being 

that sick?

~also im gud

Yes. And please write in proper English, 

I can’t understand a single word of what 

you’re writing.~

~make me! 0w0

Boxman, please I have a migraine.~

~that bad?

~UHGHHGH!

~fine, i'll try

~just for you!

PV sighed at the messages as he waited for his medication to take effect in order to get back to work on the mountainous stacks of paperwork currently looming in front of him on his study’s desk. Box had remained somewhat professional in his texting for about two months before PV made the fatal mistake of complaining about the improper grammar in one of Fink’s text messages. Soon after, he learned that Boxman typed like a freaking animal. Thankfully, he wasn’t nearly as difficult to understand as Fink, but the shitty grammar was still pure torture to read, especially while nursing a migraine.

~oh, by the weight how’s your hand?

~way*

It’s doing better. I can actually use it a bit, 

but it’s kind of itchy and I should definitely

still be careful with it.~

As if on cue, he felt the sudden urge to scratch at his palm. PV knew better though, and opted to suffer in itchy silence instead.

~sounds great!

~You think you could come over Saturday?

PV thought about it for a moment, before checking his schedule. He sighed and sunk into his desk chair.

No can do Box, my schedule is pretty 

packed.~

Actually, hang on a second.~

I might be able to squeeze in some time 

around 10:30 PM next Tuesday if I rush 

a little.~

~no

~we’re taking a day off

~now

Box, I really don’t have the time. I missed

so much important work when I was sick.

I’m really sorry, but I have to get this 

done.~

~pleeeeeaaaase!

No.~

~if not now, how about at the very least

we just don’t work on jr tuesday night

~we just go out and have a good time

~ooh and baby i can show you some

of my other experiments i’ve bean working 

on. blow some stuff up

~hows that sound?

~shit maybe* been*

~i wasnt calling you baby i swear

~that would be weird

Box, I don’t want you to feel like you

need to sacrifice your project for me.~

Also, I’m well aware of what you meant.~

…Although, the more primal and feral side of PV was a little disappointed that the pet name was unintentional. He wouldn’t be making that thought known though.

~no

~none of that

~im not sacrificing anything, this project isn’t

that important to me

~ok it is, but that’s not the point

~im more concerned about your health. 

~like, your really scaring me you know? i can

get this done later, no big deal but you were

just really sick and stuff

Something deep inside PV longed to throw all of his work to the side just to spend a little time with Boxman, just to see that passionate, manic grin one more time. However, that would be irresponsible and potentially dangerous. Boxman just needed to accept that… PV needed to accept that.

Sorry I’m really busy, Box. I should

really get this done.~

~k. at least think about it

1:21PM

The meeting with the congress woman wasn’t the only video congress he had to go to today, unfortunately. PV’s recent acquisition of a doomsday device was certainly putting other villain’s on edge. Whether it was because they were terrified of him or upset about the misuse of their funding, he wasn’t exactly sure yet. One thing PV was aware of, however, was that if he listened to another second of this lecture he was going to pass out immediately. Normally, Fink would be here to provide some form of entertainment, but she still hadn’t emerged since...earlier... Brooding fuel aside, he wasn’t sure exactly why, but he turned to his phone for a suitable replacement to keep him entertained.

Boxma~

Boxman I’m so bored.~

~another business meeting?

Yes, and Vormulax won’t stop

droning on about business 

expenses and how~

how “blowing up homeless shelters”

isn’t a proper use of research funding.~

Or whatever.~

Sorry I kept sending too soon.~

~...are you currently in the meeting? >.>

Yes, and they were so close to catching 

me a few times.~

~ just wait until the meetings over…?

No~

Boxman~

Please, you don’t understand.~

It’s so boring, and Billiam IS FLIRTING 

WITH ME HELP~

~ yikes all caps, must be bad

~i cant help though because your just 

tooooooooooooo busy

PLEASE.~

Also, you’re*. Your atrocious 

grammar hurts almost as much as

Billiam’s terrible pick-up lines.~

~awe youre no fun! :(

~why does he even flirt with you anyway?

~i mean your handsome and everything,

but (no offence btw) you’re kinda scary?

None taken.~

Also, I’d rather not ge~

I’d rather not get into that right now.~

~oh my cob

~pv you didnt!

Possibly. Depends on what I supposedly

didn’t do.~

~oh my cob you did

Can we not talk about this, thanks.~

Besides, Cosma threatened to fire him

if he didn’t stop immediately.(Thank 

COB) I swear that woman deserves an 

award after putting up with our bull 

shit this long.~

~problem solved

~also, back to the Billiam thing, how

does that even work?

~like, im probably gonna regret asking

but im morbidly cure us

~curious*

2:04PM

~you still there?

2:10PM

~pv?

Oh yeah sorry, Billiam got into a fight 

with Vormulax and I had to mediate it

since Cosma left for “more coffee”.

(probably to sob in one of the 

company bathrooms honestly)~

~oh thank cob i thought i gave you a gay

heart attack or something there for a 

second

~like, you dont understand i was this close 

to calling the homosexual peramedics to your

lair

Excuse me, what? I’m bisexual,

actually.~

~wait really?

Yes.~

Wait, how did you figure out I liked 

men?~

Actually, never mind.~

~0w0

Stop it.~

Cosma suddenly cleared her throat, startling PV.

“Professor Venomous! Is there something you would like to share with the class?”

“Oh, sorry!” He slicked his hair back and tried to play it cool. He really hoped his nerves went unnoticed. “I missed a few important meetings with clients during my, er, time off. I just thought now would be a great time to multitask.”

Cosma simply raised an eyebrow disapprovingly for a few moments.

“Look, I appreciate your dedication to the job, Professor, but please try to pay closer attention from now on?”

“Noted.”

“Alright… where were, we…”

PV quietly sighed and sent a hasty message to Box.

Sorry, I got caught. Talk to you later.~

6:43

PV had returned to his paperwork and e-mail prison some unknown amount of time earlier. There was still no Fink in sight, but he had at least gotten quite a good amount of work done. Unfortunately, PV was also starting to feel actually sick now. He was strangely dizzy and felt rather weak, and he had no idea why. 

**_Vrrt vrrt._ **

Well, at least not until he noticed the phone vibrating in his pocket and the time on the screen.

~u remember to eat?

Oh shit! That’s what time it is?!~

~i take it u forgot?

PV hurried out of his office and ran to the kitchen to make himself a quick sandwich. At least now he knew the dizziness was from not eating anything for twelve hours and not an actual sickness, so that was nice to know.

6:50

Yes, actually, thank you for reminding me.~

Also, please stop with the “u” thing, we’ve

been over this.~

~yee yee something bout the 

degeneration of the english language or

whatever i got it

You really ought to take this more 

seriously! Our youth today are 

forgetting how to properly communicate,

and this will inevitably cause a 

serious drop in intelligent and capable

young minds entering the villain sphere, 

thus leaving us with lower quality work 

and fewer viable apprentices in the lab that 

we could really use in our current industry 

environment!~

~cob, please. next you’ll be going off

about how emojis ill send us back to 

ancient egypt

~will*

6:55

~HEY NO!

~is ee you typing for 3 whole minutes

straight! stop it!

~im not reading another massive block of

text!

~shit 

~i see*

Bitch.~

~0w<

I hate you.~

~lies

Although, it’s kind of strange that Fink didn’t

tell me. She’d usually come in hours ago to

complain about “dying of starvation” even 

though she’s perfectly fine.~

~you think somethings wrong?

Nah, she probably just lost track of time

while playing with her new videos game or

something. I’ll check up on her and bring a

sandwich when I finish my own.~

~k

Although PV would normally be pissed off about the laziness involved in sending just "k" as opposed to typing literally one, _one,_ extra letter before hitting send, he found his attention drifting elsewhere. As PV ate his sandwich on one end of his long dining room table, he gazed at the several empty chairs surrounding it. Suddenly, PV realized just how alone he truly was. Although his stomach would be full soon, PV found himself feeling quite empty now. Perhaps maybe he should take some time for himself, public opinion be damned.

Oh, by the way, I was thinking about 

your offer earlier.~

~sooo?

I think maybe I have been overworking 

myself a bit. It might be kinda nice to go

somewhere with you.~

~really?

~great ill see you next tuesday!

It’s a date.~

PV couldn’t help but chuckle when the thirty minute long radio silence ended with worse than usual misspellings of Box’s excitement and some goodnights. Messing with him was almost as fun over text as it was in real life. Almost.


	33. Some Actual Voxman for Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pair finally meet up again after a couple weeks, and holy damn this whole thing went on way longer than it was meant to. Now witness as this one night stretches on so long it can rightly be called an epic all on it's own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To give you an idea of how long this has lasted, I'm currently writing chapter 39 and while they aren't at the golf course at the moment, it's still the same night and it continues for at least 3 more chapters afterward, probably more if how this one chapter ended up getting split is anything to go by. But hey, at least I've written everything that came from this chapter I think (although there is a little more that got separated by extra content that may or may not end up happening. I don't know this whole thing went on way too long and I want to move the plot onwards, help.)

_ The days bled together to an uncomfortable degree. _

But through some sort of miracle not only was it Tuesday night, but PV was also ahead of schedule! He had everything finished yesterday and opted to get started on a special commission from  _ her _ earlier that day, and he made some great progress too! Now, he just had to figure out what to wear…

“How do I look?” PV inquired of the girl in front of him.

After a much longer amount of time than PV would like to admit, he had settled on a lilac button up, a black tie, a grey waistcoat, black dress pants, and his pair of black dress shoes. He also made sure to use the good perfu- er, cologne.

“Ain’cha over thinkin’ this a bit?”

PV thought about it a little bit before answering, “I suppose you might be right… the waistcoat  _ is  _ a bit much…”

He discarded the waistcoat and looked at himself in the mirror again and hummed in thought. He eventually discarded the tie and continued the process of staring and humming all over again before grabbing another, green scaled one before wincing and immediately throwing it back on the steadily growing pile of clothing next to him. He turned around to face Fink and to ask for the small child’s fashion wisdom once again.

“Hey Fink, should I wear the uh,” he checked the label before continuing, “wine red tie, or should I just go without one?”

“Go without.”

He patted his minion on the head. “Thank you.”

The rat questioned him, “Why the heck does this even matter so much to ya’ anyway?”

“What on Earth do you mean?”

“It’s just dumb ol’ Boxbrain, it’s not like this is some impor’nt meet’n or anything! Heck, he ain't even gonna notice what yer wearin’!”

Appearance was always important to PV, but something about Boxman’s opinion mattered ten times more than anyone else’s. Sure he had feelings for Box but that had never mattered before, so why did it matter now?

“Fink, we’ve been over this before.” PV ultimately decided he was finally ready to go and headed for the front door. “Besides, I dress nice for me, not for others.” And then silently to himself “...it makes me look more professional…”

PV considered reaching for his jacket and hat, but decided against it last second. It wasn’t supposed to rain until sometime around 3 AM, and it was Summer so he’d probably be fine.

“Are ya sure ya don’t need me ta go with? What if ya run inta danger while yer out?”

PV chuckled, “It’s sweet that you’re worried, but I’ll be fine. Boxman will be with me all night and I can take care of myself, okay? Besides, I’ll be out way past your bedtime.”

“But-!”

He kneeled down in front of Fink and reassured her, “I’ll be back before 2 and I’ve got my smaller ray gun in my pocket.” He pat the lump on his side. “I’ll be just fine.”

Fink sighed, “Okay…” There was some unfamiliar emotion in her eyes that he couldn’t quite decipher.

PV got up from the ground. “If you need anything, you can ask Shannon or send a message to me.”

“Yes Boss…”

PV purred, “See you tomorrow Fink.~”

“Bye, Boss!”

They waved goodbye and PV drove to his destination, a certain country club PV had a membership for that was only ever used to meet up with the Board of Villains in a more casual setting. More specifically, Box wanted to go to the golf course. PV wasn’t quite sure what Box hoped to achieve trying to golf at this hour, but sure, he’d go there. There was no need to bring anything in particular as Boxman promised to provide everything they would need, although PV wasn’t sure how Box managed that. 

However, there were some bigger questions. For starters, PV wasn’t exactly sure how Box managed to get himself a membership for such a prestigious establishment either. In fact, by all logic, he should be banned due to the simple fact that he was Boxman. Hell, this place cost some higher ranking villain’s an arm and a leg to get in. Quite literally. The much more glaring issue though, being why the _Hell_ would Boxman want to associate with such stuffy and annoying rich people, especially considering the way these ones in particular have treated Box in the past. But more importantly, these people and their precious “golf” were both extremely boring. With the amount of passion and drive Boxman showed on a daily basis, and how _exciting_ and _invigorating_ PV’s time with the shorter man had been so far, it just didn’t add up. Granted, he had been wrong about the cyborg before and he very well could be some sort of golfing enthusiast.

After a drive that PV assumed would probably be way more enjoyable than golf, he arrived and parked his convertible in the fairly deserted parking lot. PV noticed that he was a little early, as he should be, so he waited. After a long enough amount of time for PV to wait half an hour, head across the street, buy and eat a meal for himself, and still wait a good fifteen or so minutes afterwards, Boxman finally arrived. Admittedly, he was a little pissed, but he had good reason to be. He power walked over to Box’s desk (because  _ of COURSE  _ he flew here on his Cob damned desk) and was ready to question Box on his tardiness when the shorter man spoke up.

“Oh heya PV! Sorry I’m late!” 

He laughed and ran up to PV, giving him his signature bear hug greeting. Box’s smile suddenly fell off his face, and PV thought it was because the hug wasn’t reciprocated this time, or maybe it was the killer scowl on PV’s face. 

Then all logic flew out the window when Box opened his mouth again. “I… Oh, you…” PV followed the shorter man’s gaze to a spot in the middle of PV’s chest. He was concerned he might have spilled something on himself while he was waiting without realizing, but there was nothing there. He looked back to Box, who was still staring in that general location.

“I what? Spit it out.” PV regretted the harsh tone almost immediately after the words had already left his mouth.

Box grinned. “You look really good! Is that a new shirt?”

And suddenly, PV was no longer pissed.

“Ah, no, actually. I’ve had it for a while.” PV smirked and purred, “You look rather nice as well.~”

The shorter man grew immediately flustered, ending the stare that PV could swear burned holes in his shirt. Box wasn’t dressed too unusually, just his usual white dress shirt, black tie, suspenders, black everything else, and he was currently removing his lab coat. 

As he placed the coat on his desk, he mumbled, “T-thank you!” Although Box had his back turned, PV knew he was blushing.

PV laughed at Boxman’s flustered reaction, hoping that his own blushing and elevated heartbeat went completely unnoticed. It was pretty much no secret to PV that his charm and good looks had probably claimed another victim, but the feelings were mutual this time.

Box cleared his throat before continuing, “Anyway, I should probably get the weapons ready!” Box started cackling to himself as he dug around in his desk drawers for something.

“Wait, how did you get golf clubs-”

“GOLF CLUBS?!”

_ Oh shit, that was a mistake. _

Box’s cackling suddenly evolved into a howling laughing fit on the ground, rowling and slamming his fists in the expensive rich people™ pavement. Out of equal parts fear and confusion, PV just stood there and stared. He wanted to run far, far away, but PV was completely frozen in place.

PV managed to get out a confused “Um… I’m, sorry?”

By this point Box was wheezing and crying on the ground, but he somehow managed to wheeze out a “hold on!” as he calmed himself down. PV wasn’t exactly sure what he did that was worthy of so much laughter, but sure. Once Box was somewhat calmed down he pushed himself back up.

“Whoo boy!” He wiped a tear away. “Did you seriously think we were actually going golfing?!”

PV hummed and placed a finger and his thumb on his chin, thinking the whole situation over again. “I suppose it wouldn’t make much sense…”

“Wow! I can’t believe you actually thought I could get away with golfing in a place like this! I’m honestly kinda flattered!” The last sentence was paired up with Box tapping his pointer fingers together. As embarrassed as he was, PV couldn’t help but admire that little quirk. “But, no we’re not golfing!” Box started to laugh again and reached behind himself to grab something. “We’re destroying the golf course!” He pulled out wire cutters with a flourish and let loose that gloriously contagious maniacal laugh of his, then Box kneeled down to start cutting.

PV smirked and chuckled to himself. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just use my membership? I am a VIP here, just so you know.”

Box looked over his shoulder and gave an adorable, snaggle-toothed grin to the space next to PV. “Nope! Then we’d lose the element of surprise! No fun if they already know we’re here!” Box chuckled, “Besides, you probably still want that, and you’re definitely not gonna have a membership anymore if they found out about this!”

PV genuinely smiled as he watched the shorter man get to work cutting a hole in the fence, and then he realized something that stabbed a hole into his heart. This was Billaim’s favorite place to golf. Billiam was the one that made him get a membership here, and sometimes the other two came along as well. What if they were here tonight? What if they saw him with Boxman of all people? What if they stopped funding his research? What if they started to hate him, just like they did Boxman? What if it didn’t just stop there? What if They took everything from him and Fink? They had the power to do so very easily. What if they decided he had outlived his usefulness? What if they decided they wanted to kill him? What about Fink? What if-

“Come on PV! Don’t let me have all the fun here!” Box tossed something in PV’s direction, snapping the taller man out of his paranoid trance.

PV caught the object effortlessly with his good hand and brought it close to himself, although he had no idea how he managed that in his current state. PV had to take a second to clear up his vision on account of the mild hyperventilating that had apparently started, along with the slight pain in his head threatening to become a full blown migraine. Once he was feeling better, he took a look at the object Box had haphazardly thrown at him: it was a bomb?!

PV scolded, “Holy Farmer, Box! What is with you and throwing explosives around?!”

“Oh come on, PV! Live a little; it’s just a harmless little bomb!”

“Explosives are not harmless!”

“Well duh! I think I’d know that better than anyone else!” Box chuckled darkly and vaguely gestured with his chicken arm. “Any way, these ones in particular actually are mostly harmless. They’ll hurt ya, sure, but they ain’t gonna do any permanent damage!”

PV wasn’t quite sure why, but he felt more disappointed then relieved by that bit of information. Box simply chuckled a little more genuinely than earlier, and ripped out the last bit of chain link fence keeping them out. He bowed a little and gestured for PV to enter. 

“After you!~”

PV smiled until an unseasonably cold breeze abruptly blew by, and he couldn’t quite stifle the shiver it caused. Unfortunately, it didn’t go unnoticed by Box.

“Oh hey, are you cold?”

“Uh, no, no. I’m fine.”

Box looked thoroughly unconvinced.

“It’s okay PV! Here, I’ll go get my coat!”

PV lifted a hand and moved to stop Box. “It’s fine really, you don’t have to-”

Box shouted jovially, “Nonsense! Here-” PV’s vision was suddenly cut off by a flurry of cheap, dirty, and white fabric. “I really don’t mind if you wear it, just as long as you give it back when you’re done!”

PV shifted the lab coat into his arms. “But don’t you need this?”

“Oh please PV, it’s Summer.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I think you need it way more than me right now!” 

The shorter man beamed at PV expectantly, and how could he say no to that face? PV sighed and reluctantly put the coat on. Shockingly, it was somewhat roomy and he had to roll up the sleeves a little. The material was also incredibly cheap and unpleasant, and it reeked of oil and sweat from several hard days of work and nerves. By all logic, it should have been incredibly uncomfortable. Yet, PV couldn’t help but feel rather content. Embarrassingly, he even felt the urge to sniff the coat while Box was too busy messing around with explosives to notice.

_ Wait, what the Hell am I doing? That’s disgusting. _

PV suddenly had to fight the urge to throw the offending article of clothing into the stratosphere as that would be incredibly rude, and he would be incredibly cold if he didn’t keep it. Damn his cold blood and good boy days!

Boxman suddenly yelled, “Alright! Let’s blow some shit up!”


	34. Chaos is Romantic or Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV is a mega simp.

_ Boxman allowed PV to enter the course first. _

PV looked at the bomb Box gave him in mild confusion. For some odd reason, it didn’t have any sort of noticeable fuse and it was a bright yellow in color. 

“So I assume I just toss this somewhere?”

“Ya gotta start the fuse first! Geez PV, haven’t ya ever tossed a bomb before?” Box chuckled at PV’s apparent lack of understanding.

“I have, actually,” PV retorted, “It’s just...been a while.” He added more wistfully.

Box snatched the bomb out of PV’s hands. “Okay, give it here!”

“Thanks for asking first.” PV responded flatly.

“Oh please, PV, did you want me to say please? I don’t say please!” Box puffed his chest out proudly and gave the taller man a big, toothy grin.

PV opened his mouth to point out that Box did in fact say please three times in those two sentences alone, but decided it was ultimately pointless and shut his mouth.

“Any way, you press this  _ big _ ,  **_obvious_ ** , **_RED BUTTON,_ ** **_THAT SOMEONE SOMEHOW MANAGED TO MISS._ ** ”

PV rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

Box cleared his throat before continuing, “Then you throw it!”

Box grunted and chucked the bomb off into the distance. 

**_KABOOOOOM!_ **

About a second later, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen was right in front of his eyes. A bright, orangey yellow mushroom shaped cloud sprouted out of the ground, sucking all the darkness out of the night. The shockwaves sent a warm wind blowing through his hair, but it also sent tingles down his spine. There seemed to be something sparkling deep inside the explosion, but it disappeared rather quickly. All too soon, the stunning display in front of him ended. He was also now more acutely aware of the handsome laughter next to him. PV stood there and stared at the sky for a few seconds while some belated debris flew by, he just gaped in shock and awe.

Before he could properly process what he was doing, PV snatched some of the bombs from Boxman and prepared to throw one before he felt a talon grab at his wrist. Apparently PV had a huge grin on his face a moment ago, but he didn’t realize until it had already fallen when he turned to face Box.

“Hey, hold on there!” Box chuckled as he spoke, “We gotta make these things last, and we ain’t gonna do much damage if we use ‘em all up in one spot!”

PV sighed and looked down slightly. “Yeah, I suppose that makes sense…”

The bombs were handed back to Box and they began to walk to another part of the course when PV noticed people carrying flashlights in the distance. PV panicked and grabbed Box by the arm and ran for the first ditch he could find. The shorter man must’ve tossed a bomb and yelled something on the way, but PV couldn’t hear anything in his panicked state. He practically tossed Box into the ditch- well, more accurately PV pulled Box in that direction and Box kinda threw  _ himself _ in- before joining the shorter man himself; much more roughly than he’d usually allow. He fought to keep himself calm in Boxman’s presence as the lights drew near.

**_KABOOOM!_ **

PV sighed and looked to the side, noticing that Boxman was looking outside of the ditch and seemed to be pretty proud of himself about something. PV decided to join Box in assessing the damage and was pleased to find that the villains who had come out to chase them were currently climbing out of a smoking crater and running back to the main building quite a distance away. There was some stifled laughter next to PV, and he would be laughing too if he wasn’t still recovering from the intense adrenaline high from a second ago. He could really get used to this…

PV purred, “My, I’m impressed. You’re little bombs managed to chase them away.”

“Really?” Box turned to face the taller man with stars in his eyes and seemed to stare up at PV’s cheek for some reason.

PV retreated into the ditch and stealthily wiped off his cheek and found soot on his hand.

_ Dammit, at least he didn’t say anything I guess. _

PV sighed. “They’ll probably be back soon though. They never seem to know when to quit here.” PV spat venomously.

Box joined him back in the ditch.

“Ah poo, and I’m pretty sure I used up all of the throwable bombs in our escape.” Box chuckled nervously and tapped his pointer fingers together again. “Sorry, PV! I know how much you wanted to try one out!”

“It’s no big deal, I’ll just go get some from wherever you got them.”

There was a sparkle in Boxman’s eyes.

“Really? I made them myself!”

“Oh?” Now he was intrigued.

“Yeah! It’s kinda just an early prototype right now, but I have some big plans for her!”

“Her?”

“Oh yeah, I’m gonna build a sentient bomb!”

PV simply hummed in response and turned to face Box, propping his head on his good hand in the process. This course of action appeared to excite Box further.

“I don’t really know what to name her yet, but-!”

What followed was a very long winded rant about what she would do, what she would look like, how she would act, how she would be made, and several other things. PV didn’t fully understand all of it, but he listened anyway. There was talk about possibility of her being purchasable as some sort of mine if villains decided that was what they wanted, and Box mentioned how he could have her team up with some of the other bots by having them use her as a weapon or secretly having her scattered all over the battlefield to get in the way of those “snot-nosed brats across the street”. He also mentioned something about how maybe she could float around a little and maybe even multiply in number so she wouldn’t need another bot or a careful set up to be useful in battle. It was all so very interesting.

More interesting than the content of the rant, however, was the man himself. The way Boxman made such grand gestures with his arms as he detailed his plans. No, it wasn’t just his arms that gesticulated wildly; Boxman’s whole body served to show his excitement and maliciousness. The way he jumped, kicked, and crouched lower for dramatic affect. That special way Boxman clenched his fists in rage when he mentioned the “plaza plebeians” (nice alliteration), and the way his fist hit his open palm as he howled with that sweet, sweet, diabolical laugh of his at the idea of crushing those pathetic heroes. The way both his human eye and his robotic eye seemed to sparkle with life, and energy. The way Box got so engrossed in what he was talking about that he forgot to breath several times, and had to stop mid sentence to gasp for breath before continuing as if nothing happened. Every little thing about Boxman- from the wild and exasperated arm waving, to the way his stunning, snaggle-toothed grin wrinkled the skin around his mouth- was absolutely perfect in every way. 

PV lovingly devoured every second he spent in that moment. Every movement, every breath, and every smile brought so much joy to PV’s heart and warmed his whole being up. The glorious explosions from earlier couldn’t even hold a candle to Boxman’s beauty in this moment. This man in front of him- the way he wore his heart on his sleeve and was so amazingly dedicated to what  _ he  _ wanted to do rather than what the rest of the world expected from him- was the most beautiful thing PV had ever seen. Even though he was currently laying in a dirty, smelly ditch in his nice clothes, he didn’t care. Even though he was currently trespassing in the Board of Villain’s favorite place to hang out outside of work, nothing else mattered. The only thing that mattered was the handsome Lord Boxman and his dastardly plans, and the way PV’s heart skipped a beat every time the shorter man looked at him for approval. And then it was over. Boxman finally finished his rant off, and he sat down next to PV expectantly.

“So... what do ya think...?” Box panted as he spoke.

“I’m impressed.”

Boxman’s eyes sparkled from the complement, and his smile grew larger. PV’s heart soared at the sight.

“Really?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I trust you’ll keep me updated on your progress?”

“O-of course!” Box suddenly jumped up, grasped PV’s right hand with both of his own, and shook it vigorously. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I-I’ll make sure you’re the first to know when I’m done!” Box chuckled nervously.

PV was stunned. Once the initial shock of having his arm violently tugged up and down had dissipated, PV smirked at Box. The shorter man eventually dropped PV’s poor arm, and the latter rubbed his sore limb.

“Woops! Sorry, PV! Almost tore your arm off!” 

Box chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. Seems like Box had a select couple of nervous reactions he seemed to cycle through. But more importantly, how the Hell did it take PV so long to notice these patterns, and why was his heart doing cartwheels in his chest over it now.

_ Cob dammit, calm down you idiot! You can’t date this man, so stop getting so warm and fuzzy over him!  _ PV internally sighed as he pulled himself off the ground, making sure Box couldn’t tell he was having an internal war with himself. 

Box suddenly interrupted PV’s thoughts, “So uh, what do you wanna do now?” This time, paired with the finger tapping as Box looked over PV’s shoulder at nothing in particular.

He suddenly felt much warmer, and he was almost positive it wasn’t from Box’s raggedy coat.  _ I might as well just set my heart on fire before it sets me on fire… Wait, fire… _

PV looked behind himself and suddenly got an interesting idea.

“Box, do you have a lighter or maybe some matches on you?”


	35. WhAt CoUlD pOsSiBlY gO wRoNg?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV gives the reader a gay muscular anatomy lesson, makes an awful mistake he definitely won't be regretting later, and does the opposite of what Smokey the Bear asked him to do.

_ PV blinked. _

Whatever he was expecting to see when he turned around definitely wasn’t a hastily built flamethrower with various pieces of scrap metal and some spare parts that Box must’ve had somewhere on his person. That still wasn’t quite what it was, but it was certainly headed in that direction.

“I’m sorry PV, what were you saying? I saw some trees back there and-”

“Never mind, this is even better!” PV genuinely grinned.

Box seemed confused at first but quickly dropped any questions he had. “Oh, okay! Erm, could you hand me some of the stuff in my pockets?”

“Sure thing.”

It was a little difficult to find anything useful under the various dozens of candy wrappers, but PV managed. He quickly dug out various pieces of metal, some flint, several wires, and many, many other miscellaneous pieces of scrap out of Box’s coat and returned them to the owner. He also pulled out a candy bar, which he promptly decided to munch on to give PV his much needed sugar fix.

PV watched the shorter man get to work; he was making a shocking amount of progress in such a short amount of time. It was quite enthralling to watch the man make miracles out of practically nothing, so PV crouched down for a closer look. Then he suddenly realized something.

“Hey Box, is this milk chocolate?”

“...”

“Box?”

“...”

Okay, so clearly he was too far gone to notice anything in his surrounding area. PV decided to check the wrapper; yup, it was milk chocolate.

_ Cob dammit. _

He was already a couple bites in, so he decided there was no point in stopping now. He was here for the full ride down abdominal pain mountain and he had one way tickets for the diarrhea express. Choo choo mother truckers. PV took another bite; this would be a future PV problem. Present PV only cared about dealing with his sugar addiction before he got the jitters in front of Boxman.

Without even looking up, Box held out his hand and finally addressed the other man, “Hey PV, you got any more scrap for me?”

“No,” PV started as he patted around his clothing before landing on a certain bump in his pants pocket. He pulled the object in question out. “I do have this ray gun though.”

“Perfect!” Box took it gleefully and immediately pulled it apart.

Seeing this, PV really wanted to find more ray guns and just watch Box play around for the rest of the night. It was so intriguing to watch as the shorter man meticulously pulled the dangerous weapon apart, piece by piece. It was also nice to finally have some understanding of how the technology worked, considering he didn’t build the thing himself. PV found his eyes glued to the scene in front of him and began reaching around in his coat pockets for his notebook, only to find that it wasn’t there because this wasn’t his coat. He sighed and pulled out his phone to take notes there instead. At this point, the other man had already sorted a crystal and some small mirrors into a pile of unusable junk and had taken the trigger, a small propane tank surprisingly, and the small, yet powerful lightsource amongst several other vital pieces. It was unfortunately much too late for notes now.

Thus, PV resigned to watch Box work again. This action proved to be a mistake since it turned out that Boxman was an awful lot closer to PV than the taller man initially realized. Since PV has a huge, dumb ass gay crush, he couldn’t help but fixate on the fact that Box had rolled up his sleeves at some point. He could see the pale, almost greenish skin of Box’s muscular forearms clear as day, and PV even got a bit of a peek at some nice biceps. Muscular anatomy, now there was something he understood!

_ Extensor pollicis brevis, abductor pollicis longus, extensor digitorum, and extensor carpi radialis brevis are around that area… _

The professor stared intently at Boxman’s forearms as the shorter man worked. He loved watching each individual muscle flex and slack as they worked together towards a far greater purpose.

_...Extensor carpi radialis longus, brachioradialis… Pronator teres… _

PV suddenly felt very warm and a little lightheaded.

_...biceps… muscles… gay... _

Okay, so maybe he should stop now. He shook his head as discreetly as he could manage while also being strong enough to drag his mind out of whatever whole it just dug itself into.

_ By Cob, it’s just an arm! Calm down, this isn’t the 18XXs! _

Before PV could possibly journey into the 6th layer of Gay Hell, Boxman thankfully was finished with his flame thrower.

“Alright!” Box lifted the shoddy flamethrower up menacingly and cackled evilly. “Let’s get this party started!”

PV asked a little hesitantly, “Shouldn’t we make sure it works first?” Box looked a little hurt for some unknown reason, so the taller man quickly tacked on, “Not that I’m saying your handiwork is terrible or anything, in fact it’s quite the opposite, all things considered.” Box simply raised an eyebrow as PV slowed down a little. “I just want to make sure it’s safe.”

“Damn, shoulda known you’d be a real stickler for safety! You need ta learn how to be more fun!” Box chuckled a little afterwards, and there didn’t seem to be any real malice behind the statement.

That didn’t stop PV from being mildly annoyed though. “Excuse me?”

“Alright fine, if it makes you feel any better-” Box pressed down on the trigger, causing a small stream of flame to burst out from the makeshift weapon. “There, now you have less propane to play with.”

Box suddenly tossed the flamethrower at his much taller companion without any explanation. PV somehow managed to catch the potentially explosive object without a struggle, and he had to suppress the growing excitement from actually managing that feat twice in one night as Box started climbing out of the dirty ditch they were both still in. The shorter man made a beeline for the trees without even checking to make sure PV was following him. As a result, PV had to sprint a little in order to catch up; it didn’t help that Box was unnaturally fast for someone who’s powers didn’t involve super speed.

_ Although, super speed would explain how he manages to build things so fast… No, wait, he’s late to everything, definitely not super speed, just unreasonably fast sometimes. _

It probably took about a minute or two of just straight running (and stopping to catch his breath more times than he could count on one hand) before PV  _ finally  _ caught up to Box at their destination- a bunch of trees on the edge of the course that might have constituted calling it a woods, but it was hard to tell. The grass was shockingly dry, almost as if-

“Don’t tell anyone, but I sabotaged the sprinkler system about two days ago! Helps the fire spread easier!”

“Hmm, nice.”

How intelligent of him to use the Summer sun to his advantage.

“Wait a second, I thought this-” he gestured to the homemade flamethrower in his arms, “was just a spur of the moment thing.”

Box turned towards PV and looked confused. “It was...? I just thought ‘Hey! Lil’ shits can’t go golfing if I sabotage their precious grass!’”

PV shrugged. “Fair enough.”

PV took a moment to figure out the most comfortable way to hold the flamethrower, then promptly pulled the trigger.

“Woah!” 

The strength of the force pushing back against PV was surprising, so he let the trigger go for a second to gather his bearings. He could see Box staring at him from the corner of his robot eye.

“I’m fine, it just took me by surprise,” PV mumbled defensively.

PV pulled the trigger again, and was once again pushed back a bit as the stream of fire rushed forward to devour the trees and grass. Thankfully though, he was a little bit more mentally prepared this time. What PV was not prepared for, however, was the strong hand placed against his back to keep him steady. He stifled the desire to jump, and instead decided to pretend like he was completely unfazed by fixating all his attention on the destruction in front of him. 

PV felt a smirk growing on his face. While not nearly as deliciously flashy, beautiful, and destructive as the explosions from earlier, the sight of the hungry blaze ravaging the trees and grass before him was stunning in it’s own way. PV made sure to spread his flames by slowly walking to new points while holding the trigger down. He couldn’t help but think about how those fools would react when they found out their precious golf course was on fire. 

Oh, how Billiam would wail! Ooh, and Vormulax would probably fumble with a fire extinguisher until she accidentally used it all up or lost it somewhere! Or, better yet, she might accidentally knock either herself, or Billiam out. And then poor Cosma would be left to clean up the whole mess, as she was apparently the only one on the board who didn’t lose her ability to do anything on her own after striking it rich. Sure, if they ever found out it was PV he’d get a good scolding, but damn if it wasn’t worth it all. Besides, he knew Cosma would never “fire” him and Billiam would certainly continue funding PV, especially if he decided to take Billiam up on one of his various offers to join him at one of his lairs or on one of the golden man’s yachts. Vormulax, meanwhile, well, he’d figure something out eventually. She couldn’t get away with killing him at the very least; no one could ever kill him

At some point, PV’s smirk had graduated into full blown manic grin territory. The flames were absolutely gorgeous, and he could hear and  _ feel _ Box laughing next to him. The shorter man’s laughter was contagious, and PV quickly found himself laughing with him. It started as quiet chuckling, then quickly evolved into a diabolical laugh. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end eventually, and PV was quickly dragged back into the real world by the abrupt end of the stream of fire leaving the spout of the makeshift flamethrower.

“Huh?”

PV lifted the weapon up to actively watch himself pull the trigger repeatedly. All that he got in response was a quiet clicking sound, and the occasional small flame the first few times. He felt a sudden rush of anger towards the worthless contraption for ruining his fun, and felt the urge to toss the thing on the ground and smash it to pieces. However, PV was a dignified villain and he would do no such things in the presence of his date- erm “valuable coworker”, especially considering the flamethrower was a gift from that man. However, the same was not true for said “valuable coworker” and he proceeded to do just that. Although, Box added the extra bonus of breaking it over his knee, stomping all over it, and shouting random expletives at the several pieces of jagged metal that used to be a flamethrower and probably something else at some other point prior. Once Box had calmed down a little, it was quiet for a few seconds. The two men simply watched the growing flames in silence side by side for a little while. Eventually, Box spoke up.

He chuckled nervously. “Sorry ‘bout that! You probably-”

“You want to hide their stuff and vandalize the golf carts next?” The words tumbled out of PV’s mouth before he realized he had even thought them.

Both of the men were equally shocked, although PV played it off like he totally thought before speaking and that he definitely wasn’t shocked in the slightest.

After a few short seconds, Box grinned and responded, “Of course, PV!”


	36. Dialogue, the Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Box and PV talk for a bit before breaking into a garage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is several days late! I got hyper fixated on Ace Attorney so hard, I forgot who I was... Again... And no, that was not an over exaggeration. At the very least, I feel emotionally a lot better now that I've spent a few days almost exclusively screaming "gay" at Edgeworth and wishing Franziska was back so I could scream gay at myself (why are all the prosecutors so pretty in this game series, this isn't good for my heart! eAe). As you've probably already guessed, Edgeworth and Franziska are my favorite characters (I also love Gumshoe a lot along with several others, but I have no idea of how I'd rank them past the first two), I ship Wrightworth because of course I do, and I love almost all the prosecutors with the only exceptions being Lana (I keep forgetting she exists, rip), Godot, and Manfred Von Karma. Manfred's the only one I hate, but Godot is borderline because his visor is cool and his theme slaps hard but he's a piece of poopy personality wise. Ga'ran is in a similar boat to Godot (I.e. cool design and epic theme but being a major turd hat), but I like her more since she's super duper evil rather than vaguely sexist/ageist and I just happen to really like villains that are extremely evil. Lana is just really forgettable since she only existed in one case as a defendant from what I can remember, but I have no opinion of her one way or another. Also, I really appreciate the fact that there is a character who canonically has DID, and instead of using the very obvious and problematic "One of the personalities is a murderous monster" trope, the secret fourth personality was actually just a sweet little boy whom I wanted to adopt. This series just makes me want to adopt every child I see, help.  
> Long AA rant aside, I also kinda forgot to eat and sleep, so this fanfic isn't the only thing I forgot about. I have no plans on stopping this fic, but I would perhaps also like to write AA fanfics at some point too if I ever have time (if I ever do, they will never be nearly as long as this will be). Also, sorry for the uber long rant, I just get overly obsessed with things sometimes (OK KO was, and to an extant still is one of these things) and need to get it all out somewhere other than my poor family sometimes, but I did try to cut it short so as not to be too obnoxious.

_ The pro shop that kept all the golfing supplies for those who forgot to bring their own was quite a distance away. _

As a result, the couple-erm pair of good chums decided to have a pleasant conversation on the way. Of course, most of the conversation was populated with Boxman’s many, many tales of destroying plaza plebeians.

“...And of course, my useless son had to  _ fail  _ me as usual!” Box spat out.

This story in particular was fairly run of the mill. Firstly, Boxman looked out his window and saw  _ ₊*~friendship~*₊  _ occurring across the street, so  _ of course _ he had to destroy it. PV considered telling the shorter man it was a pointless waste of time and resources, but well- “It’s not merely a ‘pointless waste of time and resources’! Their gross ‘friendship’ is bad for my sales, Professor! Seriously, as a top tier villain you really should know such basic evil business practices by now! Without me around, you would go bankrupt the second some sorry sap with some pathetic sob story walked through your doors!” He was not in the mood to hear this rant again. Business logic faux paus continued, despite Darrel being not only much more suited to manual labor but also continuously failing Boxman, he still picked Darrel to fight almost every time. Sometimes he would change it up a little and pick either Shannon, Raymond, or maybe even all three at once instead, but it was always the same story. Boxman never won once, except when PV helped that one time. PV was seriously starting to suspect that the other man was failing on purpose, but he had yet to see any proof of this.

The really interesting stories involved the once per season use of Ernesto (although he was even less suited for battle than Darrel, he still seemed to have some interesting tricks up his sleeves if Box’s stories were to be believed), that one story involving an army of Jethros (Box really should consider discontinuing it’s model, the thing was completely and utterly useless and really only served to waste precious resources that should be allocated anywhere else, but PV would be lying if he said the story wasn’t entertaining), and of course he probably should try to utilize the newest Mikayla model since he’s only used it once since it’s creation.

That last story was especially entertaining considering the children across the street irreversibly turned themselves into were-furries in order to defeat the stupid robot. What kind of idiot would irreversibly change their DNA without thinking about the potential consequences afterward? Surely, such a thing would be common sense  _ not  _ to do. Good thing PV has  _ the most _ common sense on the planet. Anyway, the yellow cat based robot had a lot of potential. PV smirked as the diabolical ideas flowed through his mind while Box finished off the usual “Darrel is a terrible “son”, and he should try being more like -insert favorite minion of the day-” rant.

“On a much less  _ useless _ note, I’ve made good progress on Junior lately!” 

“Oh, nice work. I believe I’ve finished up everything on my side of things, so how much longer do you believe this little science project of yours will take?”

Box seemed completely oblivious to the insult at the end, and decided to answer the question with one of his talons tapping his bottom lip, “If everything goes according to plan, it should be done by… probably the end of the month?” He removed his chicken hand from his face and rubbed the back of his neck with his human one. “‘Course I could be wrong though, never been too good at time management or properly figuring out how long certain tasks take!” Box chuckled nervously.

_ No shit, I never would have guessed. _

“Really? I never noticed.” PV tried to make that sound as sincere as possible, which was hard because his voice only had three modes and sincere wasn’t one of them. At least not anymore, anyway.

“Oh please, PV.” He chuckled again, as usual. “You don’t have to lie to me, pretty sure you’ve acknowledged it before and you didn’t hurt my feelings then!”

“Oof, you caught me. Sorry Box, guess my charisma skills are getting a little rusty.”

“Charisma skills?” Box questioned incredulously before bursting into manic laughter, “Lying’s more accurate!”

“A rose by any other name smells just as sweet.~”

“I still can’t believe people think that story’s romantic!”

“Yes, thank you! It’s literally just a story about some horny teenagers who decide to off themselves because Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t let them have their way. It’s like no one actually reads the text.” PV was honestly so excited to finally find a like-minded individual, that he had to force himself to stop there and not go on an hour long rant about Julio and Romiette which would inevitably turn into a weeklong rant about all of his favorite plays.

“Geeze, I think that’s the most talkative I’ve seen you get over something other than work and villainy, and it’s about a shitty, overrated Shookstaive play.” Box chuckled as if he made some clever joke and totally didn’t just admit to having zero taste whatsoever.

PV fought to keep the defensiveness out of his tone, “It’s not overrated so much as it’s frequently misinterpreted as a romance when it’s actually a tragic comedy. It’s actually pretty entertaining if you view it in that light.” PV kind of failed his mission at the end there, but whatever.

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say nerd.”

“Bu-e-!”

“So anyway, how's work been treatin’ ya lately?”

PV sighed, “It’s been pretty boring. Emails, phone calls, business meetings, you know the drill. Although, I had stacks of paperwork to trudge through too since I was ah...  _ sick _ for a week.”

Boxman scolded him, “See? And this is what happens when you refuse to take care of yourself properly, PV! I keep tellin’ you ta eat properly and go to sleep, but noooo! You’re always too busy, so I have to remind you!”

“Okay, Mom.”

“That’s Daddy to you, mister!” Box declared a little too proudly.

PV started choking on Boxman’s brazen declaration of his parental label preferences. That, and the laughter he was trying to hold in.

“Are you o... Wait a second, are you laughing?”

“N-no!” His voice quivered between the coughs.

“...Did- did I say something wrong?”

“No,” PV cleared his throat before continuing, “no, no it’s okay. It’s just that I’m still feeling a little sick, that’s all.” PV lied flawlessly.

“Oh, sorry! Do you need to go home?”

“No, no. I’m good, it’s barely noticeable.”

Although he wasn’t actually sick, that distant pain in his stomach was certainly going to develop into an issue soon. He definitely shouldn’t have eaten that chocolate.

“Oh, okay then! So uh, how about lab work then?”

PV sighed. “Honestly, I haven’t had much time for the lab lately. Whole week has been quite a bore overall. Although, I did accidentally create a mutant bonsai a few weeks back. Monitoring it has at least given me an excuse to spend a few minutes there every day. That, and another project.”

“Oooh, what’s this other project?” Box looked up towards PV with sparkles in his eyes.

“Sorry Box, that information’s classified.”

“Aww, poo. You’re no fun.”

“Perhaps, but work is work,” PV shrugged before gesturing to the garage and pro shop in front of him and continuing, “besides, we’re here.”

The pair stealthily began to break into the garage, well, PV tried to stealthily break in anyway. While PV was busy trying to find something to pick the lock, Box left some explosive behind and hastily dragged PV away from the ensuing explosion. By the arm. Boxman touched PV’s arm. With his hands. The sound of the explosion didn’t even register in PV’s brain as he was too busy trying to properly process the fact that Box unintentionally just threw him into the 6th layer of Gay Hell without realizing PV had been trying to avoid that very fate all night. The dazed man blinked a few times in an attempt to properly bring himself back into reality, and found that his hearing was apparently hindered at some point from the loud bang that he still wasn’t entirely sure happened. However, it was now steadily returning and PV was slowly reintroduced to the world of sound by the howling laughter of his part-er valuable co-worker next to him.

“...Well, that’s one way to get in I guess…”

“WHOOO! Let’s go!”

-And PV was immediately tossed back down into Gay Hell the second Box grabbed his wrist and began dragging PV through the fresh new hole in the side of the garage. Hopefully, the combination of his skin being purple and the room being quite hot from the dying embers and recent explosion would hide the warm blush that was undoubtedly spreading across his face. Suddenly, some explosives were unceremoniously shoved into PV’s hands and he swore he was starting to get whiplash from how frequently he was being tossed in and out of reality. 

The inside of the garage was pretty basic, and really the only noticeable features were the golf carts, a counter for rentals, and the door to the rest of the pro shop on the right-hand side of the room. When PV took a closer look at the explosives he was handed, he realized these were much different from the spherical bombs earlier. They were rectangular and unremarkable in coloration. There was also a small screen, most likely for displaying a countdown. Based on this information along with the fact that Box was giggling to himself while tossing the explosive little boxes into the various golf carts less gently then PV would have prefered, he deduced that the explosives were either timed or remote controlled. Probably both. Hopefully both.

It didn’t take long for PV to join Box in the festivities, after all, PV quite despised this pro shop in particular. There was a serious flirting/groping issue here, so PV usually tried to avoid it to the best of his abilities. Unfortunately, Vormulax usually forgot/lost her golfing gear so everyone ended up getting stuck waiting for her to finish buying new gear with her fat stacks of technos. Since Vormulax also had a tendency to lose  _ herself _ along with her gear, everyone always ended up having to go to the pro shop to look for her. Eventually, they all got so tired of this (and arguing over who would have to go in to look for her), everyone decided it would be better to just go with her as a group. Shockingly, it wasn’t usually the customers PV had a problem with. With the exception of a few  _ special  _ individuals, they were usually well behaved. The problem was this one employee who tended to be rather  _ problematic.  _ He always tried so hard to get specifically just PV to check out the break room for reasons the man would rather not get into. Then, PV suddenly got a bright idea. He had unfortunately placed all of his explosives, but PV was certain he could figure something out.


	37. Help, I Stretched One Night into About Ten Chapters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV lets out some pent up aggression on a bathroom sink, a TV, and several buckets of golf balls. Other stuff happens too, but yeah.

_ PV looked around for Box before finally finding him struggling to climb the counter.  _

As PV walked up behind the shorter man, the cyborg had already made it up and was now tossing the explosive he was holding.

“Hey Box, I’m going to run over to the breakroom real quick and rig some explosives there.” PV pointed over his shoulder towards the door to the rest of the pro shop.

Box hopped off the counter and stared up towards PV with some strange mixture of malice and adoration in his eyes. “Oooh, can I come with? I wanna prank their toilets!”

“Sure, knock yourself out.” PV turned around as he spoke and headed towards the door.

He should have expected it, but PV thought Boxman being unfamiliar with the area would mean that he wouldn’t run straight past the taller man and through both the door to the pro shop and the door to the break room. PV sighed, might as well let the man have his fun for a few seconds longer. He grabbed as many tubs of golf balls as he could possibly carry, and finally walked into the break room. The level of chaos and destruction he saw in there was revenge enough for him, but PV was a special kind of petty. He burst into the bathroom to see that Boxman’s idea of a prank was shoving two tons of explosive putty down the toilet, and PV proceeded to violently pour a whole thing of golf balls down the sink drain.

PV aggressively mumbled under his breath, “Screw you Jason, swear to Cob you grab my ass after this and I’m biting your fucking head off! Bitch. Ass. Friggin- piece a shit-lookin’-bitch-ass-”

“Wow. That’s a lot of pent up aggression ya got there! Bet that sink’s really regretting messing with you now!” Box chuckled sarcastically before shoving more putty down the toilet.

PV aggressively tossed the now empty tub of golf balls. “This is a perfectly reasonable amount of aggression now hand me some of that Cob damned putty!” 

“Woof, geeze!” He handed PV some putty. “Never said it wasn’t.” 

“Thank you.” PV hissed then quickly turned to aggressively shove the very dangerous materials into the sink.

Startled by the continued aggression, Box added, “Woah, hang on a second!” He rapidly waved his hands around.

“What!” PV turned on Box and hissed, tail visibly out and rattling rather loudly.

Box shrunk back a little and gave PV a big, strained smile while rubbing the back of his chicken hand with his human hand. “I just um, wanted you to know that you should uh, try to be careful with that since it is ah, kinda explosive…?” He pointed up at the putty cautiously then resumed hand rubbing.

PV suddenly became acutely aware that he was being just a tad aggressive, and that he may or may not be freaking out. He took a deep breath, smoothed his hair out, straightened Box’s lab coat, and looked away from Box in embarrassment.

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

After a few short minutes, both PV and Box were done “pranking” the bathroom and decided it was time to leave the room. As they left, PV made sure to scatter some more golf balls all over the floors and stomped on the already damaged TV for good measure.

“Who’s the “alpha now, you piece of shit.” PV tossed the empty container out the window. “That’s not even real science, bitch!”

**_Crash!_ **

PV finally exited the pro shop and left the remaining golf balls all over the floors. He also decided to pick up some golf clubs on the way out to throw into the water or something. Since PV lagged behind, he had to stop for a moment to find Boxman. Suddenly, PV heard what sounded like shouting off in the distance. He looked to the side to see bright lights rapidly heading in his direction.

_ Oh shit. _

Before he could properly react, he suddenly found himself being picked up and thrown headfirst into a golf cart. He would have been panicking if it wasn’t for the fact that he recognized the shockingly soft feathers on one of the arms. PV struggled to right himself, but he was flung back onto his head again when the cart suddenly started to speed out of the garage. 

“Woah!”

PV thought he was making good progress until the cart suddenly swerved, and PV would have gone flying if it wasn’t for the powerful arm pulling him back in. As a result of the sudden movement, the cart swerved once again. Boxman let go of PV, patted him on the head, and righted the cart.

“Cob PV, what took you so long?! And why do you have golf clubs?!” Box scolded PV.

Still somewhat dazed, PV responded, “Uhhhh revenge…?” He shrugged his shoulders.

Box sighed, “Okay, just throw this at our pursuers for me would you?” Box handed him the explosive that must have been placed in this cart.

PV leaned out the door and chucked the explosive at the people chasing the cart. As he reentered the cart, he noticed a remote in Boxman’s hand.

**_KABOOM!_ **

Before PV knew what happened, Box had pressed the button. A massive box had fallen from the sky behind them, and the cart was suddenly thrown forward by a surge of warmth and a blindingly bright light. PV tightly shut his eyes and suddenly felt like he was floating. He grabbed onto his soft, round companion next to him for dear life. He was thrown around and shaken violently. He was certain he must have been flipped upside down a few times, so he gripped Boxman even tighter. Eventually, gravity stopped trying to pry him off of his beloved-erm trusted friend. Everything was calm for a few seconds. Tentatively, PV opened his eyes. Fire. There was a lot of fire. The golf cart was pretty wrecked too; the roof was completely gone, the front was crumpled, and there were shards of glass all over both of them.

“Haha! Bet that showed them!” Boxman shouted with glee before turning around

Right. Boxman was here too… And PV was still holding on to the shorter man like his life depended on it. He let go of Box like he was on fire, although he was certainly pretty hot both literally and figuratively. It was highly possible he was also literally on fire, but that could have just been the seats or something. PV exhaled quitely. To his shock, PV found that he wasn’t painfully terrified, but rather he was quite enjoying himself. How long had it been since he had such an exciting adventure? PV looked down at his hands. How long had it been since he was in such a dangerous, possibly even deadly, situation like this? When was the last time he felt so close to death that he ironically felt more alive then he ever had before? But when he looked to the fires around him and then to the laughing man next to him, PV realized that he had only ever experienced this feeling at the beginning of his villain career… and with Boxman. No one else made him feel this way. No one else ever could. 

Box was speaking, but PV couldn’t hear anymore. His chicken arm was being used to hold him up so Box could look behind the cart at the smoldering wreckage they left behind, and there was a huge, toothy grin plastered to his face. Although PV knew the dim lighting was mostly coming from the fire, it almost seemed as if Boxman was the one emitting the heavenly glow. Wait, he kind of was actually. His red eye was faintly glowing; why didn’t PV notice this earlier? It was strangely fascinating, granted, everything about Box was strangely fascinating. PV’s eyes flicked back to Box’s chicken hand. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and despite being quite used to flirting with people, he was still strangely nervous. Granted, there weren’t usually real feelings on his part . PV slowly brought his own purple hand closer, and closer, and then… he stopped.

_ No. _

PV shook his head to himself and dropped his hand. There was just too much to lose, and he wouldn’t be able to love Box the way that man deserved to be loved. This wasn’t some romantic comedy where everything would turn out alright in the end, it was the real world. He just needed his heart to accept that. Please. As PV watched his purely platonic partner ramble on completely oblivious to PV’s internal struggle, he felt a horrible pain in his chest. He hadn’t felt this way since…

Box suddenly turned to face PV, his eyes only briefly darted across the latter’s face before settling on a spot next to him. There was concern in Box’s eyes. PV would’ve turned to look behind himself, but Box didn’t seem to be making any moves to go after whatever he was staring at so it probably wasn’t anything dangerous. 

“Hey you okay, PV? You look kinda spacey, and we did kinda have a rough escape. Oh, and sorry about that by the way! Got a little carried away again!” Box laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck with the chicken arm and propped himself up with the human one. “Anyway, you didn’t hit yer head did you? ‘Cus a concussion can cause some serious issues if left untreated, and we definitely don’t wanna damage that big brain of yours!”

PV smirked with half lidded eyes and smoothly purred, “Oh, I’m fine.~ I was just enjoying the view.~” 

He winked to make sure Box realized that yes, this was indeed flirting and not threatening his life. PV was already embarrassed that he was caught staring, and was not ready to revisit that moment as hilarious as it was.

A flurry of flustered syllables squeaked out of Box. “Ah-! Eh-! Gu-! Ji-! Ck!”

Flustering Box always produced hilarious results: The crimson blush rapidly consuming Boxman’s entire face, the stuttering, the way he immediately looked away and continued to desperately search for something-  _ anything _ \- else to stare at, and especially the way Box seemed to puff up considerably. Interestingly, the feathers on his arm seemed to puff up significantly as well. As funny and cute as this was, it kinda killed PV’s theory that it was synthetic. Now he was just even more curious about how that thing worked and how it got there. Although, he couldn’t leave the poor man flustered forever, and PV had to make sure Box didn’t take it too seriously. He had his fun while it lasted.

PV looked around and gestured to the fire, “The fire’s quite beautiful.”

PV wasn’t sure if that was a believable lie or not, but it was the only option considering how cloudy the night sky was. Thankfully, Boxman seemed to believe that no questions asked and turned to look at the fires. 

“Oh.” Suddenly, realization and dread started to spread across Box’s face. “Oh, oh no.”

“What?” PV was more confused than concerned at this point, and then it hit him. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah, we should get out. Like, now!” 

Box rushed out of the wreckage, not waiting to see if PV was following. PV had a little more trouble as it turned out he did actually hit his head at some point along with his right arm apparently, but he managed to get out. He jogged up to the now power walking Boxman who, despite the little bit of glass stuck into one of his calves, seemed to have no problems moving at high speeds away from the scene of his crimes. Just as PV made it to Boxman’s side, the cart exploded.

**_BOOM!_ **

PV was abruptly launched forward by a hot wave. Just when he thought he was going to hit the ground, a pair of strong arms caught him.

“Woah, there buddy!” Box chuckled before adding, “ Woof! You’re so light! We oughta get some meat on those bones some time, don’t want you ta blow away in the wind!”

PV removed himself from Boxman’s arms more roughly then he intended and growled, “I’m aware.”

Box seemed a little hurt, but he didn’t say anything. PV straightened up Box’s lab coat and used slicking back his hair as an excuse to look back at the wreckage. He would rather talk about anything else besides his weight issues, thank you.

“I was going to hide the golf clubs, but this seems better somehow.”

“Hmm?” Box hummed and turned to PV.

PV smirked. “Can’t find what no longer exists.”

“Oh!” Box started chuckling to himself. “Bet someone’s gonna get a real earful for that!”

PV couldn’t help but smile wider at the thought of that certain someone getting yelled at and hopefully fired for losing the golf clubs. Not to mention, PV wouldn’t be forced to go on another networking golfing trip to this Cob forsaken place for a long while. He looked over at Box and removed the piece of glass in the shorter man’s calf. Somehow, Boxman didn’t even notice. It wasn’t like his leg was robotic or something, the blood trickling down the removed shard could attest to that. Come to think of it, what did Boxman’s legs look like? Wait, no, back on topic.

“Oh Box, you had this shard of-”

Boxman interrupted him, “Hey, did you feel that?” He was holding his hand out and studying the cloudy sky above.

Right as PV was about to answer “no”, he felt a drop of water hit his face. He checked the time on his phone: 12:43 AM; the rain was coming early.


	38. Disembodied Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They take shelter in a pipe. Things happen.

_ The one predictable thing about the world was how unpredictable it was. _

In this instance, the rain was about two hours earlier than expected. As a result, neither man had an umbrella and were currently desperately running around the golf course holding up Boxman’s coat as impromptu shelter. PV had to hunch over a little so Box could hold up the other end of the jacket, and the pair were pressed tightly against each other. For some odd reason, Boxman still hadn’t rolled down his sleeves from earlier. Although, at this point he had probably forgotten they were like that. The cold water made PV shiver violently, and he unfortunately couldn’t quite suppress it no matter how hard he tried. He couldn’t imagine how cold it would be if his arms were bare. Thankfully, Boxman seemed a tad too preoccupied to notice both the cold and PV’s shivering. Both men looked around wildly for a place to get out of the rain.

Boxman wailed, “Oh, our poor fires! They’ve all gone out!”

Well, at least PV was looking around for shelter anyway. Box only seemed to care about the fires. Eventually, PV’s eyes landed on a damaged pipe of sorts sticking out of a crater from one of their earlier ventures.

“There!” PV pointed and shouted over the pouring rain, “We can take shelter in that pipe!”

They sprinted to the crater, stopping only to slide in and enter the thankfully mostly empty pipe. PV and box immediately sat down, still just as close together as when they were out in the rain. PV’s sides ached from the effort required to keep up with Boxman, and he placed the wet lab coat right next to himself. The darkness was like an endless void threatening to swallow the pair up, and PV was certain it would gobble up the coat forever if he didn’t keep close tabs on it. The only light in sight was Box’s glowing red eye and that thing was like a beacon to safety. It bathed Boxman’s face in a dim red light, and led PV to a much needed source of warmth. He practically constricted Boxman in his search for heat, and PV could hear the other man’s heart skip a beat through all it’s labour. The sound was shockingly comforting, and PV closed his eyes in bliss. They sat in silence for a while, the only accompanying noises being their own panting, the sounds of the rain assaulting the outside of the makeshift shelter, and the occasional drip dropping of water off the ceiling. 

There was just enough space for PV to not be pressed up next to Box, but he didn’t want to separate himself from the shorter man. The cold rain water clung to both men’s clothing, but PV found no discomfort. Boxman’s puff doubled as a heavenly pillow, and PV found himself melting further into the shorter man. Eventually, his violent shivering seemed to recede to a somewhat more manageable level and PV noticed that Box had apparently wrapped an arm around him at some point. While he usually hated being touched by people especially when it was Boxman, PV found himself enjoying the extra bit of physical affection for some reason. Although, come to think of it, he didn’t really hate Boxman’s weird invasions of personal space anymore did he? PV sighed; content to spend the rest of his life in this moment.

“Geeze, you’re really cold arn’cha?” Box chuckled.

-At least until Box had to open his big, dumb mouth anyway.

PV fought to keep his teeth from chattering as he retorted, “I’m cold blooded, Boxman.”

“I kinda figured, I just keep forgetting you’re reptilian!” Box looked further down the pipe, taking PV’s prized source of light with it and leaving only the empty darkness in its wake. “It’s just that, like, your skin is so smooth-” He suddenly turned back with flustered terror all over his face. “-I-I don’t- I mean you don’t have scales or anything!” He started to nervously laugh. “Or, have I just been missing them this whole time?”

PV smirked up at Box and snorted before looking at the wall of darkness across from them.

“My skin gets scaly and dry when I’m shedding, but I don’t have actual  _ scales _ . So no.”

“Ah.” There he went, taking the light source away again. “Although I didn’t realize that, eh-” Box turned back and gestured at PV with his free hand. “-whatever you are, could be scaleless.”

PV answered rather defensively, “I’m-” He stopped for a moment. Could he even be considered human any more? “- _ was  _ human.” PV finished dejectedly and looked away. “There’s a certain mutation in some snake species that causes them to be born scaleless, and I made sure to pick one with that mutation just in case.”

Not reading the room at all, Box answered gleefully, “Ooh, really? I guess that’s pretty cool!” Box looked up and placed his chicken hand on his chin and tapped his lips in thought. “Don’t know how I didn’t realize yer whole shtick was snakes sooner, makes sense though I guess!”

_ How the Hell- _

“Oh hey, we probably shouldn’t be wearing wet clothes! Might get sick!” 

And just like that, Box was taking off his tie and things started to sound like the plot of some contrived smutty gay romance book. The kinds found on a mom’s night stand, or on the back of her toilet in the bathroom. The kind that had stupid titles like, “Taming the Bad Boy”, or get this, “Muscle Tragedy”. Ridiculous, right?

PV separated himself from Boxman immediately. “Woah, woah! I don’t think that’s…”

Apparently Box had already unbuttoned and removed his shirt. He looked to PV confused. “Hmm?”

“...necessary…” PV found his gaze lingering on Boxman’s barely lit chest.

_ Oh Cob... _

“On the contrary, PV, I think it’s very necessary. Don’t wanna catch a cold, and it’s not like we could just waltz out there and get a towel or something!”

“I’m pretty sure we’re just as likely to get a cold wearing nothing at all as we are wearing wet clothes at this point.” 

For some reason, he still couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from Boxman’s pecks. It didn’t help that the feathers on Box’s chicken arm seemed to stop just below his shoulder, fueling PV’s curiosity further. That, and there was some awfully comfy looking chest hair present.

“Look, it’s fine! We can just huddle up again- and oh hey a lighter! Hold on, Imma start a fire for us!”

“With what, exactly?”

“There’s probably some wrappers and a bar of chocolate or five in there. I kinda tend to hoard that stuff in my pockets so I don’t have to leave.” He chuckled a little and tapped his pointer fingers together. 

PV dug out the various wrappers, and by Cob there were a lot of them in there. Box really needed to clean out his pockets. Potential lecturing material aside, he handed the shorter man what he asked for.

“Erm, chocolate too please? Kinda hungry!”

As if on cue, PV’s stomach started to growl at him. Choo choo, looks like the regret express finally arrived at it’s station. He really shouldn’t have eaten that bar of chocolate. 

“Sounds like you’re hungry too, we’ll-”

“I ate it.” 

PV looked away in embarrassment and clutched his arms closer to himself. His stomach was in excruciating pain. Why the Hell did he just admit to it? He literally could’ve just said he didn’t find one, and he probably would’ve gotten away with it if Boxman’s uncertainty in the number present was any indication.

“You… okay, okay. This is fine, I can eat later and we still have-”

“I’m lactose intolerant…” PV didn’t know why he said that either, but he felt like metaphorical shit and didn’t care anymore.

“...” Box just stared at the taller man with wide eyes in shock.

PV knew this because he spared a glance in his direction and stared back in shame. “...”

“Do… Do we need to call a doctor?” The concern and confusion were clear in his voice.

“I’m fine…” PV gripped his arms harder. It didn’t help that his shiver was back full force.

“Okay, but why…?”

“...sugar…”

“...” A slow blink from Boxman.

“...”

The shorter man lifted his arms up in defeat. “Ah- ya know what, you dug your grave, now ya gotta lay in it. Imma just start a fire and you can just sit there and get a cold or something.” Box waved at the taller man dismissively.

“At least put your shirt back on first...” PV grumbled through the pain.

Apparently Boxman was either intentionally ignoring him or was just too busy to notice PV said anything. The fire he made was rather small, weak, and it kind of smelled like burnt paper with a hint of mouth watering melted chocolate and some caramel that was either already there or from the sugar melting. Oh, and Box also threw his tie in at some point, so there was burning fabric too. It kind of just smelled like death at that point, and PV was concerned that he was going to look like death after a short while because of it in conjunction with his already very present and awful allergies. Although the toxic smoke filled the small pipe, his visibility was significantly improved due to the fire. Since PV was pretty sure he would find the coat again if he separated with it now, he placed the soggy fabric on the ground next to the fire.

Without realizing it, PV found himself inching closer to Boxman again. He certainly wasn’t going to allow that man the satisfaction of touching him again, but the fire was warm. That, and the way the fire’s light hit Box’s face was absolutely gorgeous. Not to mention when Box yawned on occasion, and the light reflected off that precious snaggletooth of his. Just ignore the shirtlessness and everything would be okay, that whole situation just wasn’t good for PV’s heart. Granted, Box seemed to be having a similar issue with PV’s shirt being plastered to his torso if the occasional darting eyes was anything to go off of. Otherwise, things were oddly quiet as they waited the rain out for a bit. Too quiet, actually. For the first time that night since Boxman showed up, Venomous had time to fully process what was happening around him. Everything was uncomfortably familiar, like the fact that this pipe wasn’t quite suited for one person let alone two. Of course, the harsh sound of the rain pummeling the outside was familiar too. The all consuming darkness was only kept at bay by fire, and PV dare not think about going deeper into the pipe. He didn’t want to go back. He couldn’t go back there, not again. It was awful there. Why was he so scared? There was no reason to be scared, this was stupid. And yet, he wasn’t so sure if his shivering was from the cold or… The dark really shouldn’t be this scary. This wasn’t the same as it was then. He needed to calm down. Boxman could notice him any second. Venomous’s poker face could only get him so far. What if Boxman saw? How stupid-

Sucker. It was cherry.

Apparently there was a cherry sucker in PV’s pants pocket, although he didn’t remember digging it out or putting it there in the first place. At any rate, he unwrapped that thing as quickly as his shaking hands would allow and popped it in his mouth. As the taste of cherry enveloped on his tongue, he could feel his stress start to slowly melt away. Now, if only there was pain medication too because he was nursing a really bad migraine right now on top of the stomach ache. PV was just having a whale of a time right now wasn’t he?

“Ooo! Hey, a sucker! Can I have one?” Box suddenly asked gleefully.

PV winced, loud noises were not what he needed right now and he’d murder the resulting echo if it was an actual person.

More quietly, PV growled, “I don’t have any more.”

“Oooooh, I see how it is!”

PV tensed up in preparation for yee old “Candy isn’t healthy for you, you’ll die young if you keep using it as a crutch for your stress!”™ What happened next shocked him.

“You're just gonna hog all the sweets for yourself! Not cool PV, but I respect your villainous hustle.”

_ What? _

“Also, I’m like, way too pooped to be angry with you right now.”

“Good, because this migraine is killing me.”

“Damn, that sucks I guess.”

“How very insightful of you.” PV hissed sarcastically.

“Sorry, I don’t really know what to say to you right now. I’m kinda worn out.”

PV sighed and looked away. Everything was quiet again for a bit, and the tense air seemed to smooth out after a while. Eventually, Boxman broke the silence.

“Ya know, I’m kinda hungry. I know it isn’t much, but maybe there’s a fast food joint nearby and we can eat after the rain passes.”

“I somehow doubt it.”

This was a pretty rich part of the Neo riot outskirts, there was almost no way there’d be a Weenie Hut or something out here. There might be a bar open around this time somewhere though.

“Well, I mean, I’m sure we could figure somethin’ out. I just want food, and you should probably eat something other than candy.”

“Just make sure to put your shirt back on first.”

Apparently, Boxman forgot he took that raggedy thing off. The shorter man’s shocked rambling and fidgeting would be funny if PV wasn’t in so much pain.


	39. Expect the Expected Unexpected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they go to a bar. Things ensue.

_ It was a dive bar. _

They went to a cob damned dive bar. It was the only place open after 3AM in the area apparently. Hell, PV was surprised such a garbage hole was even within fifteen minutes of the country club to begin with. It was mostly empty with maybe one or two patrons here total besides PV and Box, both of which were at the bar. Or at least, that’s what PV assumed based on the abandoned food and drink in front of an empty bar stool. Granted, the only other seating options were the empty booths of questionable cleanliness that had stuffing and springs falling out. The walls were made of poorly mortared and cracked bricks, and the floors were filthy wooden planks of similar construction quality. The grungy lighting consisted of christmas lights and the type of eye straining neon lights that somehow managed to be bright enough to destroy your retinas, but not bright enough to provide any actual lighting. Things only got worse when he found a familiar orange imp behind the bar.

“Hello, friends!” greeted the painfully chipper young imp.

PV simply waved in acknowledgement of “Quinn”, hoping that they could even see his hand in this god awful lighting. He wasn’t sure what they were doing here since PV was pretty sure Quinn worked for DD, but whatever. He was going to try and remain as polite as possible, and thus would avoid such questioning. Boxman, however, went in the exact opposite direction of politeness.

The shorter man shouted, “EXCUSE ME? I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND! I AM LORD-”

PV covered his ears and hissed at Box, “Okay, that’s enough Boxman! Please stop before you rupture my eardrums!” 

He tried desperately to nurse the ringing in his ears, but it was to no avail. Meanwhile, Box continued to puff himself up like a territorial bird as some sort of intimidation technique.

With a big smile on their face, Quinn responded, “Wow, golly frie- erm, valued customer! I’ll try to keep your preferences in mind!” They were shockingly polite and thoroughly unfazed by Boxman’s outburst, and the slip up was most likely more so to do with habit than any form of intimidation. It made PV sick.

Box narrowed his eyes and scowled. “You’d better!”

The imp simply gave them a sickeningly sweet smile as the pair of villains decided to sit next to each other at the bar as opposed to trying their luck with those booths. There were really only five bar stools total, so PV sat next to the partially filled glass of cheap beer and a rather disgusting looking half eaten omelette. The owner of the drink and meal were probably in the bathroom since Quinn hadn’t bothered to clean it all up yet. This left a space between Box and the other patron, who had apparently paid her bill and was now booking it from the establishment. PV immediately regretted deciding to sit next to the other patron, as sitting next to strangers was always awkward, but even more so when the tabloids took to calling you the “Sexy Serpent of the Villain World”. As skilled as PV had become in charming people over his years as a heart throb hero, and even more so after becoming the Neutral Zone’s top hottest villain, he absolutely despised having to actually talk to people outside of his closer colleagues. Mostly for those reasons, but also for a few others. Unfortunately PV was already as comfortable as his splinter-ridden stool would allow, and Quinn was already taking Box’s order, so there was no real point in moving.

“And what would you like, valued customer?” They looked to Box expectantly, a massive customer service grin was plastered on the imp’s face.

“I wanna big glass of beer,” Box declared while gesturing grandly with his arms, almost slapping PV in the neck in the process, “and a, uhhh cheezburger!” Box puffed his chest out and grinned out of some weird sense of pride.

Quinn’s smile didn’t falter in the slightest, but they seemed rather confused. “Um, you sure you don’t want breakfast?” PV could tell the imp was struggling not to use the term “friend” again. “It’s like, three in the morning, so maybe you’d be happier-”

Box slammed the table with both hands, causing PV to flinch from the noise. “I’m tired, overstimulated, and starving. And if you don’t make me this burger right now, so help me Cob, I am burnin’ this whole damn place to the ground!” Boxman shouted in true suburban soccer mom fashion.

Quinn’s terrifyingly jovial smile, however, didn’t falter even the slightest bit. “Alrighty then, fr- valued customer!” The imp did a sort of half bow before taking PV’s order. “So, what would you like this fine morning?”

PV had lost his appetite already just witnessing Quinn’s never ending pit of genuine chipperness, but the low quality food just kind of made things worse. There was no way in Hell he was ordering a meal from this place. Drink wasn’t off the table though, PV was still very much parched.

“What types of wine do you have?”

Quinn really quickly checked the racks of alcohol in the bar. “I’m afraid all we have are a few red wines. Looks like we have cabernet, one bottle of zinfandel, and merlot. I hope that’s alright with you, sir?”

While PV much preferred white wine for a variety of reasons- one of which being the fact that it didn’t stain as badly as other wines- he didn’t mind red wine either. He would just have to be a little more careful- in more ways than one.

PV sighed, “I suppose the cabernet will do.”

“Great!”

The imp poured their drinks in oversized glasses, and went into a room that PV could only assume was a kitchen that looked equally as distressed as the rest of the building. PV was genuinely concerned about just how massive his wine glass was, although it was probably more accurate to simply refer to it as a glass of wine as this was definitely not a wine glass.

_ Oh no… _

He delicately took the large glass of deep red drink in his hands, he carefully brought it up to his lips and took a sip… It tasted like shit. He sighed, PV wasn’t too fond of poor people™ wine, but he had no other choices right now. He carefully began to set his glass down when Box suddenly slammed his own drink on the table and let out a massive burp. The sudden action startled PV and he watched in slow motion as the dark red liquid sloshed around the glass, threatening to stain his nice clothes further than they already were. Back and forth; the liquid grew closer, and closer to the edge of the rim. Seconds felt like hours as PV watched in terror. Thankfully, however, nothing exited the oversized glass… Yet. PV let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding in.

“Woops, excuse me!” Box chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck nervously before turning to interrogate PV, “Why didn’t you get anything to eat, arn’cha hungry? I mean we’ve been out for hours, and you and I both know that candy isn’t exactly in your system anymore.”

Box had him there, although PV wasn’t quite sure how he knew that. PV may have gotten a little more sick than he initially expected, but he was careful not to raise suspicion when he went to extricate the contents of his stomach. Just as he was about to argue that he was never that sick, PV suddenly realised that suddenly getting up to go out in the rain you spent so long trying to avoid was inherently pretty suspect. Thus, he decided he might as well just answer the question without protest.

“Box, I’m getting sick again just looking at this  _ thing _ next to me!” He gestured to the plate of half eaten breakfast next to him.

“Geeze, PV! No wonder you're such a twig, your fancy rich boy stomach can’t handle anything!” Box slapped PV’s back in an annoyingly friendly manner, causing the wine to threaten the taller man’s clothes once again.

PV tossed the chicken arm away from himself and quietly growled, “Stop.”

Unfortunately, Box either didn’t hear or was blatantly ignoring PV’s genuine agitation in favor of continuing to slap the taller man’s back. The misfortune and annoyances didn’t stop there, however, as the owner of the unpleasant meal and drink on PV’s other side suddenly returned.

“Hey, Gorgeous! Din’t think I’d shee shomeone like you here!”

PV slumped forward ever so slightly, desperately trying to get away from the situation.

_ Cob dammit all! _

This man was pretty much just your average rich, suburban superhero/villain (It was honestly difficult to tell who was good and bad in the neutral zone half the time) with mediocre powers. The kind that wear pink polo shirts, khaki shorts, and use blue sweaters as a cape instead of wearing them like a normal ass person. The kind that PV could very easily see his teenaged self calling a “stupid preppie”. This man reeked of unimportance, especially considering the author didn’t even give him a name.

“Morning.” PV answered into his drink.

Normally, PV would activate “charisma mode” in these instances. This time though, it was way too early and he was much too cranky to properly flirt his way out of this. The man leaned on the counter next to PV in such a way that blocked the purple man’s escape route, but he seemed a little unsteady and smelled heavily of alcohol.

“Sho, does this pretty face have a name?”

“Profess-”

“I’m Lord Boxman!” Suddenly, Box’s arm shoved it’s way above PV’s head so he could shake hands with the newcomer. 

Box’s smile was massive, but the other man seemed to pay him no mind. PV simply took a long sip of his wine, so he could wash down the insult he just swallowed back.

“Professor Venomous. And yours?” He said through a fake smile.

The man simply ignored his question and asked, “So, you’re a professor? Didn’t strike me as the type to be capable of handling such a job.” 

_ Yay. Negging. My favorite flirting technique. _

PV mentally rolled his eyes, but maintained a slight smirk and half lidded eyes on the outside. He had dealt with pick up artists before, but only after PV became a villain for some reason… and also only when the “artists” were drunk… weird.

“And why’s that?” PV took another sip.

Boxman interrupted the conversation, “Wow PV, you must be- Oh hey, It’s my burger! Gimme!”

Quinn hastily gave Box his cheap burger, gave PV an apologetic look, ‘n then they just left the scene.

_ That was super weird… _

The annoying man shot poor Boxy a glare, then answered PV’s earlier question, “Well, I just thought you would be more suited for a modeling career.” He gripped PV’s arm slightly in a way that was probably meant to be flirty, but came off more gross than anything else.

_ Here we go! _

PV took another long sip. He fumbled with the glass a little, but somehow nothing spilled.

“Although, you probably wouldn’t be too good a model either ‘cus that coat a yoursh ish  _ not  _ flattering at all. ‘N yer hair ish kinda a mess, but I bet there's a real pretty pershon under there somewhere.”

“Acshully,” Boxy interrupted with hish mouth full, “the lab coash mine.” He swallowed, “Personally, I think he looks-”

“Excuse me, can’t you see we’re having a conversation here?”

“W- excuse me?”

The stupid friggin’ preppie sighed ‘n the mosht obnokshous way possible before putin’ his grubby hand on PV’s thigh. Gross, prep cooties!

The creepy bastard wishpered ‘nta PV’s ear, “How ‘bout we get outa here ‘n have some fun together.”

PV wash startled ‘n meant ta grab his glassh, but he fumbled n’ dropped it on the floor ‘nstead. He nearly dropped himshelf as well, but his Boxshy caught him with his sexy armshes. That stupid prep fell though, ‘n it wash  _ GLORIOUSH!  _ PV couldn’t help but bursht out laughin’ at his misfortune.

“Woah, hey there buddy!” Boxshy’s laugh was shuoper cute. “At least none of it went to waste I guess!”

PV struggled ta speak through laughter. “But mah...mah wine! Itsh... all over the floor…!” PV reached out weakly. Or wash it weekly? He didn’ know ‘r care anymore.

His Boxshy pulled him closer ‘n said, “Um PV, you uh, drank all of it.”

“...I did?”

“Y-yeah, guess you were really thirsty…” Boxy laughed som’ore.

“Oops!” PV giggled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for the next chapter to be the first one from Boxman's POV, because that'll be happening quite a bit from this point onwards.


	40. Drunk off Power...and Alcohol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV is drunk and Boxman gets in a bar fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turns out it's pretty hard to describe something you've been explicitly avoiding your entire life

_ It was safe to say that PV was pretty out of it. _

Like, Boxman was able to hug ‘im without the man tensing up for a second? Not only that, but the taller man practically  _ melted _ into Boxman’s arms! PV didn’t do that. Maybe a pat on the back or one of them one armed bro hugs, but he didn’t “melt”. Oh and then there was the  _ smiling _ and the  _ giggling,  _ or well, Box assumed the other man was smiling _.  _ He was much too close to PV to be able to see his face properly. Box rarely ever got to see anything outside of a poker face or the occasional smirk, so the change was kinda nice. He would probably have’ta watch PV around alcohol in the future if this was gonna be the end result every time though considering how potentially dangerous this could be. But for now, at least PV seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Hey you! Let ‘er go ‘n getchur own girl ta take home!” Ah yes, the elephant in the room who apparently thought PV was A WOMAN HOW THE HELL?!

Box shouted, “Wh-? He’s a man?!?!” Box looked at the lower leveled villain at his feet incredulously. How did he not know this?? The Professor was an accomplished and very attractive scientist for crying out loud!

“Ow, Boxy!” PV whined and weakly slapped one of the shorter man’s moobs, “Don’t yell in my earsh!” He started to fall again, but he caught himself by gripping Boxman’s moob tight enough to potentially leave bruises then kicked Box’s leg a bit to keep himself up for good measure. “Whoopsee!”

Box struggled not to yelp in pain, and opted to give PV a strained smile instead. “Eheh! S-sorry, PV!” Boxman’s arms twitched slightly.

“S’okay.” PV threw up an “okay” sign and winked at Box.

PV  _ winked  _ at ‘im. Box’s face suddenly felt quite warm and he had ta fight to keep from getting too giddy over that prospect.

“What ‘r you blind?!” 

Oh yeah that’s right, someone else was here too. Suddenly the sweater-caped lunatic roughly grabbed PV by the face and arm, then started tugging him away from Box. PV started whimpering and gripped onto the cyborg with his free hand like his life depended on it, which alerted Box to the fact that the taller man was not enjoying the company of that uninformed “villain” as much as the cyborg initially thought. Box didn’t want to hurt PV, but he also was becoming acutely aware of how agitated PV must have been from the very beginning if the wine drinking was any indication. And so, he tugged back gently so as to not hurt PV. Unfortunately, he lost the little tugging match because of this decision and poor PV ended up in the arms of that  _ plebeian.  _ Box had failed him again.

“See, look!” The scoundrel removed Box’s ruined coat from PV and practically groped the purple (He was more of an orchid or lavender magenta actually) man’s hips. “Could a man have hipsh like theshe?!”

“Lemme go you shtupidt pprepie!” PV was struggling so much he almost knocked both the creep and himself over.

Box immediately got up off his stool, rolled up his sleeves in preparation for a fight, and practically sprinted up to the low life who clearly had no idea how to wear a sweater properly. 

He puffed his chest out defiantly and growled, “Yes actually! You literally touched his stubble, how’d you not feel that?! And his voice is like, super deep?! And hips mean literally nothing!” 

He looked to PV, hoping he’d get some sort of help in clearing up this weird debacle.

“Yeah, bpitchh Imma man! I’m more a man than you too, ‘cuz I have way more dicksh!”

Okay, that was not what he meant by “help”. And yet somehow, the outlandish and nonsensical statement about the amount of “parts” he “had” worked…? Box had to rush forward to grab the drunk scientist before he hit the ground after the trash goblin unceremoniously dropped the orchid man like he was a ticking time bomb.

“Hey.~” PV purred and looked up at Box to make full eye contact through half lidded eyes. 

The wave of anxiety that swept through Bosman’s body and resulting sharp pain in his chest told Box he needed to look away, but he suddenly found himself frozen as several incomprehensible thoughts flooded his head all at once. It was only for a second, but it felt like an eternity and his head and vision felt off for a bit when he finally broke eye contact. Box found himself mentally cursing at himself for his stupid brain. His arms twitched again, and Box was suddenly very thankful PV was too drunk to potentially make fun of him for it. Or atleast he thought he was too drunk, but then PV started giggling.

“You’re so cute when you’re flustered!~” PV purred and playfully slapped Box’s chicken bicep. 

Box silently sighed in relief, but then immediately started falling apart as he realised what was happening. Immediately after the slap, the hand remained on Box’s arm and began playing with the fluffed up feathers peaking out of Box’s rolled up sleeve. This resulted in the cyborg blushing even more, as his feathers were literally being ruffled by the taller man in his arms.

“...so soft…” PV added dreamily.

Box was suddenly starting to feel very warm, and his arm twitched again. He was about to sputter out a confused thank you when he was suddenly interrupted.

“Disgusting!” The dingus yelled as he picked himself up off the floor.  
Oh yeah, he was still here. Once again, Boxman’s one track mind forgot to account for his surroundings.

The man was standing now, but he almost fell back onta the ground as he continued, “I’m- I’m not gay! Can’t believe you tried ta lead me on like that.”

Boxman felt his entire being suddenly fill with righteous fury as the low level scum lunged at PV, although it thankfully wasn’t hard to keep PV away from that bastard. He placed PV down on his stool rather roughly and turned back to the offender, feathers now both figuratively and literally ruffled.

PV whined as he was let go, “Noooo, my heater!”

“What’r ya gonna do fu-”

As soon as he heard that “F” sound, Box saw red and his body moved without his input. Faster than anyone could say the phrase “the F-word isn’t in the budget”, Boxman was landing a right hook squarely on the other man’s jaw. The punch had enough power in it to cause the fool to spin a full 360º and stagger back against the wall next to the door. Box took a second to look at his shaking hands, then look at the other man analyzing the blood coming from his lip, then back at his hands. He was in shock, but only for a second as the preppy jerk was now lunging at him. Box dodged a sloppily thrown punch and planted a knee into the now vulnerable and stumbling man’s stomach. The impact was dead on, and the preppie fell to the ground holding his aching body. Box crouched down next to the man.

“Have you had enough? Gonna apologize-”

_ CRACK! _

The sucker punch caused the cyborg to stumble backwards, and Box abruptly lost vision in his cybernetic eye. He felt around the left side of his face until, yep, broken glass! The other man was holding his now broken hand while screaming in agony, but Box couldn’t hear it. All he could hear was the pounding of his own heart and the sound of the stool he apparently picked up and broke over the other man’s head. 

Box puffed himself up and screamed in rage! He dug a remote outta his pants pocket; Boxman’s final weapon for the night. He smashed the big red button repeatedly until it broke! A manic grin spread across his face as boxes began raining from the sky, and Box laughed maniacally as the boxes punched holes in the ceiling and crashed onto the floors below. They opened to reveal a small army of Shannons, Darrels, and Raymonds! His favorite children! (except Darrel, but he might as well get a chance to redeem himself.)

Box barked an order at his children, “Destroy everything in sight, but especially him!” He pointed at the low level plebeian at his feet.

His children immediately got to work, and Box turned ta PV and picked him up bridal style before an especially over zealous Shannon could buzz saw the poor inebriated man in half.

“Time to go!”

The taller man in Box’s arms simply watched his savior in awe. Boxman sprinted through the door of the bar, then slowed his pace to become more of a power walk once he was a safe distance away.

**_KABOOM!_ **

The bar exploded behind the two men. Box’s favorite part of blowing things up was always walking away from the explosion and towards the camera in slow motion: mostly because it just made him feel like he was the main character in a cool action movie. This time was different though, mostly because there were no cameras and this was fanfiction. But there was something else. As Box looked down into his arms, he discovered something even better. The gift of Gay Hell.

Although PV was an absolute mess, this didn’t seem to detract from his appearance at all. The way the warm light hit PV’s skin, and the way it reflected off his beautiful raven hair seemed to make the taller man glow and sparkle. Granted, some of that could have been the remains of his ruined makeup. PV was thankfully preoccupied with Boxman’s feathers again, so he didn’t notice the staring. As Box studied the other man more closely, he began to notice other minor details he never saw before. There was some faint scarring around PV’s neck, and Box made a mental note to ask about this later. Box then moved to the other man’s face, making sure to avoid the eyes at all costs. The man’s orchid skin was soft to the touch, and he had a nice jawline too. Box stopped once he followed the slope of PV’s perfectly sculpted nose up to the smudged remains of the orchid man’s eye-liner. PV abruptly stopped playing with the feathers, and turned his full attention on Box.

“Hey Boxy,” PV leaned up to Box’s ear and whispered, “Are you takin’ me to yer bed?” He began giggling maddly.

Box’s feathers puffed up to three times the usual size, and he blushed so hard he could’a sworn he transformed into a tomato. Before he could protest, however,-

**_PONK!_ **

-he suddenly ran face first into a pole and dropped PV on the ground. Lesson definitely not learned, pay attention and try not to go into autopilot mode in unfamiliar spaces when your vision is compromised. Box spent a few seconds sitting on his butt in a daze before drunken groaning brought ‘im back to the real world.

His orchid companion grunted and weakly waved an arm around. “Booooooxxjyyyyyy! I’ve fallen ‘n I can’t geddup!” PV suddenly began breaking into childish giggles.

Box sighed and pulled himself off the ground with a grunt. “Hold on, I’m coming!”

The shorter man grabbed the other villain by the arm and lifted the orchid man back up onto his feet… And then PV flopped right back down onto the ground again; giggling like a schoolgirl as he made contact with the dirt.

“N-noooo! You gotta-  _ hic! _ \- you gotta pigkk’me up like I’m your wife again!” The giggling increased in intensity.

Box couldn’t help but blush as his mind was once again flooded with thousands of incomprehensible thoughts, but this time they were joined by several images of PV in a wedding dress. That man could pull off anything. And then suddenly an orchid hand was waving his fantasies away. Box shook his head; he should really refrain from thinking such things when he was pretty sure the feelings weren’t mutual.

“Earth to Boxshy, ‘m still on the ground!”

“All right, all right,” After lifting the shockingly light man up bridal style, Box continued, “Geeze, you're really out of it! Better get you home!”

PV’s dopey, drunken smile melted Boxman’s heart. As they made their way to Box’s desk, (he was almost positive PV would murder him if Box so much as looked at the convertible the wrong way, so the vehicle would be left behind) PV stroked the feathers on the other man’s chicken arm.

“...How does this exist?”

“Hmm?” Box looked down quizzically, and realized that the taller man was almost certainly referring to the arm situation. He chuckled nervously and his ams twitched a little. “Oh that?”

_ Quick, come up with something! _

“I uh, was just born that way!” He gave the taller man a strained smile and hoped his nervous sweating would go unnoticed.

_ Shit, that’s a terrible lie! He’ll never believe- _

“Oh, neat!”

Box inwardly sighed in relief; he would really rather not explain  _ that _ right now. Even more relief came in the form of Boxman’s desk, where he carefully laid the taller man down before sitting down himself. Box dug out his emergency replacement eye, and replaced the broken one. He blinked a few times as sight returned to his left side, then unceremoniously tossed the broken eye over his shoulder Box was satisfied with his vision. He set the desk up to first take them to PV’s layer, then return him home to Boxmore. Just as the desk started flying, he felt a hand on his arm.

“Hey Boxy, I had a really good time tonight,” PV whispered.

He turned to face PV. “Oh, thank goodness! I was worried you had a bad time!” He laughed, “I mean, ya didn’t get to throw my experimental bombs, we got chased all over the place, we almost died in a crash, got stuck in the rain for several hours, you threw-”

Then PV suddenly leaned forward, and planted his lips on Boxman’s. 


	41. No Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PV normalizes getting his drunk ass taken advantage of way too much and then things go very down hill very quickly.

_ This wasn’t what he wanted. _

Well, it kinda was, but not while Venomous was drunk! The kiss was awkward and sloppy, and the taller man obviously wasn’t in his right mind. This wasn’t right. As such after freezing for a second, Box reeled backwards in shock.

He stammered, “P-PROFESSOR VENOMOUS!?”

“Whatsh wrong, Boxshy? I thought you wanted to.” He seemed hurt.

“Y-YOU’RE DRUNK!?” Box shouted and gestured at the taller man with both arms, hoping that he would get the point.

PV crawled forward, and seductively (or as seductively one could manage while drunk out of their mind) placed his hand on Box’s thigh. “S’okay, I don’ mind.”

Box gently removed the hand from its resting place, and placed it back on the desk. “Uh, no, no Professor. You might say that now, but you’ll probably regret it later…” He subconsciously wrung his hands.

“Oh… Ok…” Venomous backed off, and the disappointment in his face made Boxman’s heart ache. Venomous continued, “I’m sorrey, you probly hate me now…” There was a quiet sniffle.

_ Wait a second, is he crying? _

“Uh, n-no! I-I don’t hate you! It’s just, um, I don’t want to hurt you.”

There was a louder pair of sniffles. “B-But, you’re sh’posed to kish me. ‘M I not-  _ sniffle-  _ good’nuff for you?” 

Venomous pawed at his eyes, although Box couldn’t see any of it through the ebony hair shielding the orchid man’s face from view. Box really, really hated seeing the other man so upset, and Box never really knew what to do with himself when other people were crying. Even still, he felt the need to console the drunken man he was flying with somehow. That was how he ended up awkward-side-hugging-with-bonus-bro-back-patting™ his flight companion.

“That’s not it Professor. Look, If you still want the kiss when you’re sober, than I’ll gladly give you one. How’s that sound?” 

Venomous sniffled and was quiet for a few seconds. Eventually, he responded weakly, “...Ok…”

The taller man leaned into Box and they looked up at the night sky. The moon was still pretty messed up from they’re last big outing, but he seemed to be making a decent recovery. He really hated that moon fellow, always controlling the tides and telling him when to go to sleep! Although, he had to admit that the stars were really pretty. Not as pretty as PV, but still pretty. The only sounds were the wind, the sound of his and PV’s hearts, and a soft snoring emanating from the taller man who had apparently passed out. It was nice and calm; everything was okay now. Box could feel his eyelids getting heavy, they slowly slid downwards- but no! He had to stay awake! He had to make sure PV got home safely! But it was so peaceful, and quiet now. His eyes once again began to droop- nope! He lurched his head back up, he had to stay awake! 

For some reason, Box’s mind began to wander over to PV. He most likely wasn’t black out drunk, just regular drunk all things considered. There was a high chance that PV would remember...

_ OH COB WHY DID I TELL HIM I’D KISS HIM WHEN HE WAS SOBER?! _

PV would likely remember that, and then maybe he would get uncomfortable with him or something. Box couldn’t blame the other man though, he was pretty unreliable and Box wasn’t exactly conventionally attractive… But what if PV did still like Box after this? His mind started to wander towards the possibilities again: they could attack the plaza together, they could snuggle up by the fire after committing arson in the middle of winter, they could go on nice dinner dates… and then destroy the diner…

_ Wait when did my eyes close, and what’s that infernal noise? _

He opened his eyes and took a look over the edge of his desk.

**_BOOM!_ **

-But he was suddenly thrown backwards when the desk lurched upwards due to the force of some sort of incendiary attack! He rushed to grab the now confused PV and hold him close. As they fell, seconds felt like hours. It felt like he was floating; he wasn’t moving in any direction but rather the world itself was rapidly spinning out of control. The only thing that told him otherwise was the strange feeling of his internal organs trying to fly away from his body. The stars became long, white blurs that spun into a massive, vaguely green and brown blur. Where was his desk, shouldn’t it be underneath him? Dangerously hot flames flickered in the corners of Boxman’s vision; only some of which impatiently devoured the brown blur he identified as his wooden desk he could’ve sworn he was on a second ago. Or perhaps that was a minute ago? The massive blur he now recognised as the ground was rapidly approaching with each rotation, so Boxman found himself instinctively screwing his eyes shut. He pulled the taller man tightly against himself and braced for impact. 

**_Crack! Crash! Crack Crack!_ **

His body slammed into several tree branches. With each impact, a sharp pain shot through Boxman’s entire body. However, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as he knew it should have. After a second or two, he slammed into the ground at last. Hard.

“Oof!”

Thankfully he landed on his back, so PV would have Box as a cushion. Unfortunately, PV undoubtedly hit most of those branches on the way down. Box struggled through his own pain to push himself up and get a closer look at the man in his arms. He lifted the other man’s face a little to get a better look; Venomous’s eyes were glazed over and he seemed rather distant.

“Professor, are you okay?!”

All he got in response was a pained groan and a wet sounding cough.

“P-Professor!”

Venomous weekly responded, “...‘v... survived worse…” His point was punctuated by another wet cough.

Blood. There was blood, so much blood. It was all over Box’s tattered shirt, and dripping out of Venomous’s mouth. Boxman’s heart dropped.

“...Oh Cob...” Box whispered in terror.

Venomous looked down at the blood on Box’s shirt, but there was no fear in his eyes. “Oh, that’s probably not good…” The professor was eerily calm for someone who just fell out of the sky and coughed up blood. “Eh, s’okay.” The taller man attempted to push himself back up; his supporting arm and legs wobbled dangerously. “I’ll just… walk it off.” As soon as he put any significant weight on his feet, he collapsed with a yelp of pain. 

Box scrambled forward to catch the taller man, just barely catching Venomous in time to keep him off the ground. There was a sharp pain in his right leg, but he ignored it in favor of making sure Venomous was safe. 

“You can’t just walk off a 5,000 foot drop out of the sky, are you crazy?!”

“...5,000 feet? Wait, how did we get there?”

Box had a sinking feeling Venomous was still kinda drunk, but at least that meant the pain was likely dulled. He decided to ignore the other man’s question, as Boxman was more infinitely concerned about possible injuries than answering drunken ramblings. Box patted around Venomous’s tattered clothes, eventually coming across a massive red stain spreading across his left side. As Box tapped it Venomous flinched and breathed in sharply, but otherwise acted like nothing was wrong. He lifted the taller man’s shirt to find a heart wrenchingly massive gash. The blood sent a chill down Boxman’s spine, and he suddenly felt dizzy with terror.

“Well, whatever the case it doesn’t matter.” PV began to push himself up again. “I’m just gonna walk it off. Not like I’m gonna croak or anything…”

“N-no!” Box pulled Venomous back down rougher than he probably should have.

The taller man winced, but immediately covered it up with a smirk. “Boxy, I’m fine. You can let go, it’s no big deal. Or was there another reason you wanted to keep me on you?” Then the bastard winked!

In response, Boxman forced himself to make eye contact and scolded the other man. “Would you stop, this is serious! I’m worried about you, you idiot!” 

Box startled himself a little with that last insult, and it took a lot of blinking to keep himself from looking away. Thankfully however, it seemed to stop Venomous’s escape attempts.

The taller man huffed and mumbled, “Fine.” 

There was more, but Boxman couldn’t quite decipher anything since the Professor rolled onto the ground and mumbled everything under his breath. Boxman checked himself over to make sure he didn’t have any major injuries of his own, (outside of some minor cuts, bruises, a couple tiny pieces of glass in various parts of his legs somehow?, and a possible sprained ankle, he was fine) then looked for something he could use to stop Venomous’s bleeding. His eyes eventually fell on his own tattered and now bloody lab coat that the taller man was still using. He moved his hands to tear the fabric, then noticed the shivers PV was making a poor attempt to hide. Poor thing was gonna need that coat for warmth. Box sighed and subconsciously rubbed his left knuckles, this was going nowhere and fast. Just when he was about to give up, and just tear up the jacket, he looked down and got an epiphany. It came in the form of his similarly tattered and slightly bloodied shirt. He effortlessly tore the sleeves off, and shuffled a little closer to the injured man.

“Lift your shirt up for me.” Box commanded.

PV wordlessly complied with an indecipherable poker face. Box quickly got to work compressing the wound, which earned a sharp intake of breath and a tensing of muscles from the taller man. As it turned out, the gash looked much worse than it actually was. There was almost certainly no risk of death, but better safe than sorry! Once Box was satisfied with that, he wrapped the ragged cloth around Venomous’s waist. There unfortunately wasn’t enough there for Box to be confident that it would hold if PV got up, but the taller man wasn’t going to die and that’s all that mattered.

“Am I allowed to get up now?” The tone was as undecipherable as PV’s poker face.

“Absolutely not!”

Something twitched in PV’s facial expression, but Box couldn’t quite place what it was.

“Imma look for my desk and call for help, be back within an hour!”

All he got in return was a “hmph.” and a half hearted “wave” if you could even call lifting a hand in the air and promptly dropping it again with no extra flourish a wave. And with that, Boxman turned around and limped further into the woods. He turned his phone on to first call 911 since PV’s injuries were almost certainly beyond Boxman’s first aid skills, and second use it as a flashlight. Little did he know, the person who shot them down was a very powerful woman indeed. There would be no doctor willing to help PV.


	42. Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> RING RING, it's the plot again.

_ Professor Venomous glared deep into the darkness beyond the trees. _

PV wasn’t sure if he was eagerly awaiting Boxman’s return, or if he was glad the shorter man was gone. He was still pissed off about being babied for his injuries, although the pain was admittedly pretty awful. It was probably better no one was around to remind PV of just how weak he truly was. Breathing was exceptionally painful, but he was shot in the lung before and this was nowhere near as bad. He would probably still need to see a doctor though, or at the very least chug a bunch of illegal healing potions for a day. He was really starting to get antsy, but it was probably in his best interest to stay where he was. In order to temporarily distract himself, PV pulled out his phone and looked over his recent messages. He had a few text updates from the Shannon he bought to babysit Fink along with a few business email alerts. Of course most of the emails were likely spam or various villains and heroes trying to get in his pants, all of which would inevitably be going into the trash where they belonged once he got home. The only thing outside of the usual was a text from an unknown phone number. He checked the message.

~There are consequences to your actions.

Oh yeah, he forgot about the vaguely threatening messages! Those were his favorites to receive from random z-list villains and heroes, it was probably from the congress woman or something. Right into the trash with this text message, and all the similar emails he most likely received in the past 24 hours would be following it just as soon as this never ending night was finally over… Although, maybe it had some meaning? Most of these messages didn’t lead to anyone actually attacking him, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. Besides, there was still that small percentage of crazies who tried to hurt him and Fink. And then there was POINT… 

**_Crack_ **

PV jerked his head into the direction of the noise. Darkness. Okay, maybe he should be a little worried. He could feel eyes watching him from every corner. Maybe POINT finally found out who he really was? Or, also terrible, maybe the villains in charge of that golf course figured out he was behind the attack? Oh Cob, what if the Board heard about this? An owl hooted in the distance, causing PV to jerk his head in that direction. His body hurt worse than before. A flock of birds rustled the trees they were hiding in as they took off. Who was coming for him now? He was a top tier villain with a lot of enemies. Could be anyone. Perhaps a lower tier villain was looking for a quick way to rise up the ranks. He probably had a huge bounty on his head too, so bounty hunters were a possible threat. PV broke a whole bunch of laws too, so POINT was a possible option. A bush rustled, but it was too dark and his vision was too blurry to see it. Oh Cob, he was- wait! He still had his-

_ … _

_ … _

_...Oh shit… _

He patted his side again for good measure. The gun really was gone, wasn’t it? They broke it. He was a sitting duck. Oh Cob. POINT or bounty hunters could come for him any second now. He wasn’t sure which fate was worse, death or POINT. Either way he was doomed. They were here, whoever they were. He could feel them. They were watching just out of sight. Creeping. Waiting. Watching. What should he do? Run? He tried to move. Nothing. His body wouldn’t move. He couldn’t move. His muscles had betrayed him, and he was going to die here. The world was spinning and his head was killing him. Hewasgoingtodie.Hewasgoingtodie.Hewasgoingtodie-

“Hello, Professor.”

It was  _ Her. _ He slowly turned to face the red imp, making extra sure to hide his pain behind a blank expression. He couldn’t show weakness in front of others, especially not someone like DD.

“What do you want?” He tried to keep his voice level; PV was still nursing his paranoia.

He was positive she could do little more than break a bone or two- after all, if DD was capable of killing PV he probably would have died years ago. There were plenty of much better scientists with actual powers. He was probably fine with her around.

She smiled down at him. “You broke our contract,” she purred, “I’m simply here to remind you that your actions have consequences.”

“W-what? I’m not sure-”

PV choked on his remaining words as he was grabbed by the throat, and slammed into a tree full force. Wood splintered around him as his back was filled with extreme pain, and PV coughed up an unhealthy amount of blood. DD scowled more in response to having her fancy suit ruined by blood than whatever other transgressions PV had apparently committed.

She hissed, “Don’t play dumb, serpent! You and your new little toy just blew up TWO of my prized businesses!”

PV attempted to ask what she meant, but the words were drowned by more blood.

“You can’t seriously expect me to believe you had no idea, I put Quinn in charge of every one of my businesses! They saw you! You  _ spoke  _ to them!”

Ah, yeah, he was wondering why they were there. He honestly should have seen this coming, damn he sure felt dumb now. He’d think about it further, but he was abruptly flung into the ground. A hoof was placed on his back with just enough pressure to keep the weakened man down on the ground; meanwhile, a tree crashed to the ground somewhere behind them. PV wasn’t scared though, he’s gotten out of worse scraps just fine. He might not be doing well right now, but he was confident he could slip out of this situation somehow. Then, he noticed something vaguely familiar on her waist.

“Eh, guess I was a little distracted.” He wheezed slightly, and carefully snuck his tail out. His hands were being watched carefully.

“Yeah, distracted getting drunk and flirting with the peasantry!” She increased the pressure on his back.

“Woof, you know I can’t help myself. I see cute villains and I just  _ have  _ to know all their business secrets.~” He purred as best as he could through the excruciating pain in his lungs.

PV’s tail gently wrapped around something glass, and he began slowly pulling it off of her.

“Look, I really don’t want to hurt you, but you’re kinda forcing my hand here. All can be forgiven if you just-”

**_Crash!_ **

At that moment, PV brought the glass object in his tail’s grasp crashing down on DD’s head. The pressure on his back was briefly lifted, allowing PV to slither out of her grasp. He began sprinting into the trees until a sharp pain in his side caused him to trip, and fall back onto the cold, hard ground. He must’ve reopened his wound, no big deal though. The serum was likely all over DD now, and she was just as powerless as-

PV was suddenly gripped by the back of the neck and slammed into another tree, before being turned around and slammed into yet another tree with slightly less force. 

“Good thing I already used that up huh? Might be a real problem then! Speaking of, you’re gonna make me more!” She spat, “Oh, and also a good couple hundred million technos to pay for the property damage you and your robotic chicken nugget caused me today!”

He was now facing the very pissed off imp, but his attention was more focused on the tree falling in the background. It was almost as if she couldn’t quite control her powers...

PV wheezed, “Oh how cute! You’re like a baby vipe- urk!” 

He was promptly pulled off the tree and slammed back into it with enough force to make him cough up more blood. Extreme pain filled his entire body and he felt like he might pass out any second, but if he could get her mad enough maybe…?

“Have you ever wondered why I had you, an untrustworthy and deceitful villain, sign a contract with me?” She growled.

“No-” He was promptly slapped across the face. His cheek was burned by the weak fire threatening to escape her claws.

DD scolded him. “Shut up I’m monologuing!” She cleared her throat and continued, “In the world of villainy, law doesn’t exist, right?” 

“Look, if you don’t want me to interrupt, don’t ask-” Her grip tightened around his throat, so now nothing could enter or exit through his windpipes.

She raised her voice, “But, I find that for me personally,” then spoke at her regular volume again, “contracts provide power far beyond something as pitiful as the law could offer. You see, I’m not really an imp.  _ Surprise!”  _

She emphasized this declaration with a massive demonic grin, as if this was some game changing twist. He kind of already figured it out though. He’d point that out, but he was starting to see stars from the lack of oxygen in his brain.

“A couple centuries ago, some idiot sealed my powers away and sold me off to the highest bidder.” She summoned the contract PV had signed with her under duress just a few years ago. That probably wasn’t legal, but he had a sinking feeling that fact wouldn’t work in his favor anymore. “This little parchment here is the key for me to get them back, but it only works on someone who’s gullible enough to sign their name on the dotted line. And, oh look! It’s your name! All I’d have to do is ingest some of this paper, and not even a million of your newest playthings dinky little Glad meal toys could save you from me.” She smiled devilishly. 

If he could just tear up that contract somehow...

“So, do you want to be a good little twink or do I have to rid myself of you?”

She released a little of the pressure from around his throat, and he gasped for air. His vision started to clear up, and he could feel some of the strength return to his arms.

“Sorry, but I think I’ll pass.” 

He smirked and lunged for the contract, closing his fist around… air... His hands were engulfed in a hot, searing blaze. Pain. Venomous immediately tried to retract his hands and put out the blaze, and DD dropped him onto the ground half heartedly.

“Oh Professor Venomous, you were so stupid, and predictable. I expected better from someone who’s managed to live this long without powers.” The demon purred, “Although, you did have me surprised with that little tail trick earlier, so you had that over my other prey I guess.”

PV was thankfully able to put the fire out before too much damage was done. “What’s with the past tense, I’m still very much alive.”

“Not for much longer,” the Demon purred from somewhere behind him.

Just as the realization of what a massive screw up PV had committed finally sunk in, he felt a sharp pain in his side and was sent flying into tree after tree. All he could feel was pain. He was probably thrown around a few more times, but he couldn’t tell any more. The world didn’t really exist anymore. He was going to die here. Everything blended together into one massive, colorless blur. Everything was going dark. Would anyone care if he disappeared?

Probably not. At least it didn’t hurt anymore.

Everything was dark. At least POINT 

never found out he was alive.

Everything’s dark.

Darkness.

Dark.

…

.

...

...V?

...PV?...

...Venomous?!

He was cold. Very cold. He could hear a heavenly voice calling out his name somewhere in the distance. It felt familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where he heard it from. Was he finally dead and this was just the angel here to take him away? Something warm started touching him, and the angel’s voice seemed to get closer. The angel was saying something, but he couldn’t quite decipher any of it. He slowly opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see much. There was fire, and a greenish blur.

“...Am I dead?”

Damn, the great cornfield in the sky really let itself go. He then proceeded to pass out from the pain again.


End file.
